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MR. REYERDY JOHNSON:
The Alabama Negotiations;
AND THEIR JUST REPUDIATION BY
THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.
BY GEORGE BEMIS.
BAKER
&
NEW YORK:
GODWIN, PRINTERS,
PRINTING-HOUSE SQUARE.
1869.
��MR. REVERDY JOHNSON:
THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
The extraordinary avowal of Mr. Reverdy Johnson in vindication
of his rejected “ Alabama ” convention, that the United States 1‘ob
tained, by the convention in question, all that we have ever asked ”—an
avowal contained in a dispatch to Mr. Secretary Seward on the 17th
of February last, but which has but recently found its way into circu
lation on this side of the water—is one so calculated to embarrass the
country in its further negotiations with England, and to disparage
American reputation abroad for fair dealing in diplomacy, that I feel
called upon, as an advocate*©^ American rights and American honor,
to expose its groundlessness, and to uphold the perfect fairness and
propriety of the Senate’s repudiating alike Mr. Johnson’s words and
his works.
It is bad enough to have such ^compromising assertion as this of
the late Minister to England, [paught up and echoed by our English
opponents and European ill-wishers, generally; but to have it started
by our own diplomatic representative in the first instance, and that
out of apparent pique, because the country had not approved of his
doings, constitutes an offense against official propriety and national
loyalty such as I believe has never before been witnessed on the part
of an American Minister. I trust that the expose which 1 am about
to attempt of the justice of Mr. Johnson’s extraordinary avow’al, will
be so conclusive, that the most charitable deduction to be made in his
favor, after reading it, will be, that either his mind and memory had
failed him, or that his ignorance of the subject which he was treating,
may have left room for his honestly believing in the truth of what he
was so rashly and unwarrantedly asserting.
�4
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON:
The letter or dispatch of the 17th of February, referred to, con
tains various other obnoxious assertions of Mr. Johnson’s, upon]
which I may have occasion to comment in the course of my remarks,
such as, “ at no time during the war, or since, has any branch of the.
Government [of the United States] proposed to hold Her Majesty’s
Government responsible, except to the value of the property de
stroyed ” by the “ Alabama ” and similar vessels; “ the Government [of
the United States] never exacted anything on its own account”'—“to
demand more now * * * would be an entire departure from our
previous course, and would, I am sure, not be listened to by this Gov
ernment [the British], or countenanced by other nations,” etc., etc.;
and I would gladly reprint the whole of it, except for its length, and
Q for the reason that the lettei' itself has, doubtless, already had a
wide circulation through the American press—at least in the United
States. The whole dispatch, I venture to predict, will be a memora
ble one in our diplomatic annals, and will hereafter set the seal of
history, as I must think, upon the character of Mr. Reverdy John
son’s “Alabama” negotiations.
For the information of those of my readers who may not have
happened to see it, I would say that it is to be found (at least) in the
New York Herald of July 3, where it first met my eye, and where
some editorial introduction shows that it had been recently furnished
to that journal—apparently by Mr. Johnson himself—to meet, what
was said to have been, “ a garbled extract ” from it published in some
other New York newspaper. The whole letter, itself, would seem to
have been laid before the Senate, in secret session and confidentially,
prior to its action on the “ Alabama ” Convention ; and I gather from
other American journals (other than the Herald'), which have hap
pened to come within my observation here, that Mr. Johnson, before
publishing it, asked the President’s permission so to do. Whether
President Grant actually gave that permission, or whether he could
have constitutionally authorized the publication of a Senate confiden
tial document at all, supposing him to have been indulgently inclined
to grant the ex-minister’s request, is more than I have ascertained ;
but I am confident that Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s worst enemy could
not have persuaded him to a more injurious step, for his own reputa
tion, than that of thus giving this letter an unnecessary, and perhaps
unjustified publicity.
Before entering upon my criticism of this extraordinary dispatch
of the 17th of February, I must first premise a word of comment
upon the circumstances attending Mr. Johnson’s appointment as Min
�’THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
5
ister to England, and also call the reader’s attention to the dates of the
two conventions which he afterward negotiated in that capacity.
As to the appointment itself, which was made and confirmed in
the early part of the month of July, 1868, I believe that even Mr.
Reverdy Johnson’s own friends will hardly contend that the English
mission was offered to him on any other footing than as a graceful
compliment for previous political services (probably, on the part of
the President, for having so warmly befriended him during the Im
peachment trial), or that his unanimous confirmation by the Senate
afterward, was due to anything so rrijuch as to a feeling of kindly per
sonal regard toward him on the part of his fellow-Senators, coupled
with the belief that his functions wouffh mainly nominal and honor
ary. At any rate, as I shall presentlySave Occasion to show, his origi
nal instructions, after he was so ^onfirriaed, gave him no latitude to do
more than “ sound Lord Stanley upon the subject ” of the “ Alabama”
claims, and, as Mr. Seward addsw»yy‘ after the two more urgent
controversies previously mentioned [the ‘ Naturalization ’ and ‘ San
Juan’ questions] can have been put wider process of adjustment.”
Mr. Johnson, thus confirmed and thus instructed, negotiated two
conventions (or treaties, as they am more popularly called), viz.: one
signed by Lord Stanley and himselQ.'ated November 10, 1868, which
was “unanimously” repudiated byg^srv member of Andrew’ John
son’s cabinet; and a second, with Lord ClargWon, dated January 14,
1869, which was the one acted upoafbyg^ United States Senate,
April 13th following, and rejected by a vote of fifty-four to one.
Now, in answer to Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s assertion, that we ob
tained by his conventions—one or both—“ all that we ever asked,” I
hope to show by official documents—some of them being Mr. John
son’s own dispatches—
1. That he himself was not originally authorized “ to ask ” for
anything; instead of which he propose®!, at one of his earliest inter
views with Lord Stanley, “ the payment of a lump sum of money,” or
“ some cession of territory,” in settlement oRbe Alabama claims.
2. That starting thus with asking money or territory, he dropped
all mention of both in his conveilfion of November 10th, which
amounted to such a total abandonment of the American claims, na
tional and individual, that even “ President Johnson and his colleagues ”
(to quote Mr. Thornton’s account of the reception of the treaty at
Washington) “were unanimously of the opinion that in its present
form the convention would not’ receive the sanction of the Senate,” and
“ its contents were not in accordance with the instructions which had
been given to Mr. Reverdy Johnson.”
�6
Q
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON :
3. That Mr. Reverdy Johnson and Mr. Seward united in agreeing
to the convention of January 14th following, in total oblivion or ig
noring of Mr. Seward’s long record of complaints about belligerent
recognition and the national injury which hadj resulted therefrom, and
when both of the negotiators were well aware that any convention to
which they might put their names, or give their approval, was subject
to the final sanction of that Senate which had come within one vote of
deposing with disgrace the President under whom both of them at that
moment held their commissions.
4. That, while the consideration of the convention of January 14th
was pending before the Senate, and after the administration of Andrew
Johnson had given way to that of President Grant, and at a time when
Mr. Reverdy Johnson knew that the new President was about recalling
him, and had given him no shadow of authority for the proceeding—
viz., under date of March 25,1869—Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of his own
head, “ officially ” proposed to Lord Clarendon to amend the conven
tion then pending before the Senate by adding to its terms a consid
eration of the national claims which the United States as a Govern
ment might have against the Government of Great Britain—the very
claims which he himself has undertaken to decry in this lately pub
lished letter of February 17th, as such “ as would not, I am sure, be
listened to by this Government [the British], or countenanced by
other nations.”
5. And that, finally, when Lord Clarendon begins to be distrust
ful of Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s attempt to represent or misrepresent
the United States, and demands of him by what authority he under
takes to ask for so material an alteration of his previous arrangement,
Mr. Johnson replies to him that he makes the proposal “ under the
ample authority conferred upon me when I came to this country and
since ; an authority which has never been revoked or in any particular
modified thus distinctly affirming that he had ample authority to
negotiate for the settlement of those very national claims, which he
would now make it appear had never been put forward, “ during the
, war or since, by any branch of the Government.”
From such a muddle of mistakes or misrecollections on the part
of the American Minister as seems to be involved in the foregoing
statement, which I promise presently to duly verify by official docu-s
ments, the reader will doubtless be glad to be delivered, so far as may
be, by a sight of Mr. Johnson’s original instructions themselves. Ac
cordingly I hasten to lay them before him, so far as they touch upon
the negotiation of the Alabama question, with which alone I am now
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS
7
dealing. I quote from what I believe to be an accurate reprint of
them, contained in an elaborate and careful summary of the documents
laid before the United States Senate at the time of acting upon the
commission of January 14tb, as recently published in the New York
Times of July 6, 1869 :
Department of State,
)
Washington, July 20, 1868. t
»
Sir :
*
*
*
W
*
*
*
*
[I here omit a long exposition confined exclusively to the “Naturalization” and
“ San Juan ” questions. I shall also take the liberty to italicise the concluding
lines of the extract following, as I intend to? do in ^reference to future extracts
throughout, where I think the use of italics will help the busy readei* to more
readily apprehend my points.]
Thirdly, If you shall find reason to expect that the British Government will be
prepared to adjust the two questions already mentioned in some such manner as
has been proposed, and satisfactory to both parties, you will then be expected to
advert to the subject of mutual claims of citizensand subjects of the two countries
against the Governments of each other respectively.
The difficulty in this respect has arisen out of our claims which are known and
described in general terms as the Alabama elainia In the first place, Her Majes
ty’s Government not only denied all national obligation to indemnify citizens of
the United States for these claims, but even refused to entertain them for discus
sion. Subsequently Her Majesty’s Government, upon reconsideration, proposed to
entertain them for the purpose of referring them to arbitration!, but insisted upon
making them the subject of special reference, excluding from the arbitrator’s con
sideration certain grounds which the United States deem material to a just and
fair determination of the merits of the claims. The United States declined this
special exception and exclusion, and thus the proposed arbitration has failed.
It seems to the President that an adjustment might now be reached without
formally reviewing former discussions. A joint commission might be agreed upon
for the adjustment of all claims of citizens of the United States against the British
Government, and of all claims of subjects of Great Britain against the United
States, upon the model of the joint commission of February 8, 1853, which com
mission was conducted with so much fairness* and settled so satisfactorily all the
controversies which had arisen between the United States and Great Britain, from
the peace of Ghent, 1814, until the date of the Sitting of the convention.
While you are not authorized to commit this Government distinctly by such a
proposition, you may sound Lord Stanley upon the subject, after you shall have ob
tained satisfactory assurances that the two more^urgent controversies previously men
tioned can be put under process of adjustment in the manner which I have indi
cated.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
Reverdy Johnson, Esq., &c., &c.
The last sentence of the foregoing dispatch settles the question of
the extent of ministerial powers conferred by “ the original instruc
tions of July Wthf upon which we shall presently see that Mr. John
son is continually dwelling. An authority “ to sound ” cannot certainly
be equivalent to a power to settle. It may be best, however, once for
all, to run through the American Minister’s entire diplomatic career,
so far as the matter of official discretion is concerned, in order to be
�8
MB. REVERDY JOHNSON J
convinced of his total misappreciation of the functions with which he
was charged. I doubt if such another exhibit of misrecollection or mis
understanding of his official powers (perhaps of excess of them) by a
diplomatic envoy, can anywhere be found. Being originally invested, as
the above extract shows, with no higher discretion than to “ sound Lord
Stanley,” and that, too, only upon the contingency of “ the two other
more urgent controversies having first been put under process of adjust
ment,” Mr. Johnson, after some further correspondence and sundry telegraphic communications from the State Department, which we shall
presently have occasion to notice, but of which he apparently makes ho
account, negotiates and signs with Lord Stanley the convention of No
vember 10th, and sends it home with an explanatory dispatch dated the
same day. In the course of this dispatch, after setting forth the tenor and
effect of his treaty, he adds the following remarkable explanation of
his doings, as if he anticipated being called to account for exceeding
his instructions. I quote again from the New York Times' reprint of
the official correspondence, the letter Johnson to Seward, of November
10,1868:
3/y authority for agreeing to this [that is, the leaving to arbitration the “Alaba,
ma ” claims in the shape which his convention had arranged for] is found in your
original instructions of the %S)th of July last, and is indeed to be found in the cor
respondence between yourself and my predecessor regarding these claims.
Was ever a more extraordinary avowal made by a diplomatic
agent than this ?—that, under a power “ to sound ” a foreign govern
ment, he considers himself duly authorized to sign a lasting treaty
with that Government (by force of the technical term “convention,”
to last to all time), and, if he has not sufficient authority of himself,
he has it as successor to a predecessor who had power enough for any
thing I Pray, has Mr. Reverdy Johnson, in his great practice as a
lawyer, ever learned that in the law of Agency, A. B. can consider
himself empowered to do whatever C. D. could have done, because
both A. B. and C. D. happen to represent a common principal ? Yet
I have no earthly doubt that the New York Times' reprint of Mr.
Johnson’s language, as above, is accurate to the letter.
But this is by no means the worst muddle or misunderstanding
made by the American envoy in the course of these negotiations, over
which I am arguing the question of the Senate’s duty to reconsider
and reject his work.
Being sharply reminded by Mr. Seward, by an ocean telegram,
that he had gone too fast and too far in negotiating this convention
just referred to, Mr, Johnson rejoins, that he was “ not only author
in
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
ized,” but “ bound ” to do what he had done.
language:
9
I quote again his exact
\Johnson to Seward, Nov. 28, 1868.]
Why you are of the opinion that the [Alabama] Claims Convention is “ useless
unless amended ” you do not state, and I am unable to conjecture. I have just had
an interview at the Foreign Office with Lord Stanley, who readme a dispatch from
Her Majesty’s Minister at Washington, which stated that it was understood that
all the Cabinet disapprove of it, and had said that it was contrary to instructions.
This latter statement puzzles me yet more. If I understand your original, and all
the subsequent instructions, whether by telegraph or otherwise, the convention
conforms substantially with them. By thoseof the 20th of July, I considered myself
authorized, if this Government would adjust? as desired, the Naturalization and San
Juan controversies, to settle the claims’ controversy by at convention on the model of that
of February 8, 1853. And as the two former were satisfactorily arranged, I deemed
myself not only authorized, but bound to adopt the course that I did in relation to
the latter.—N. Y. Times, ut sup.
Now, taking Mr. Johnson’s own statement of his case, what can
he mean by stating that the instructions of July 20, which merely sug
gested “ a sounding,” not only “ authorized, M bound him to adopt
the course that he had taken in relation to the latter ” [these same
Alabama Claims] ? Has not Mr. Johnson failed in mind and memory;
and must it not have been perceptible to his English official opponents ?
But there remains a worse confusioi^if possible, of powers and
authority in connection with th^Minister^{attempt to reconcile his
treaty of January 14th to Senatorial acceptance. The ratification of the
convention having been kept in abeyanc^by the Senate till after the
accession of General Grant J^the Presidency, and word having reached
Mr. Johnson, in England, that the treatykvas not likely to be accept
able at home, on account of its omission of any mention of national
claims, he sets about amending it of his own motion in the manner
already suggested. Under date of March 25th, long after he must have
been painfully aware of the unpopularity of his course with the coun
try at large, and long after he had, doubtless, expected his recall by
the newly-installed Executive,, he writes to the British Foreign Secre
tary, Lord Clarendon, as follows. (I quote now from the British Par
liamentary Blue Book for 1869, North America,! No. 1, p. 46):
* * *
therefore, now officially propose to your lordship that we sign a
supplemental convention, which shall only sofar-alter the one of the 14th of January
as to provide that the claims which either Government may have upon the other shall
be included within it, and be settled in the same way.
Lord Clarendon, by this time having, doubtless, become persuaded
of the American envoy’s disposition to amplify his office, demanded,
in reply, whether he had the necessary authority for agreeing to so
important a modification of the original treaty. To this Mr. Johnson
replies in the following extraordinary letter, which, it seems to me,
2
�10
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON I
caps the climax of his ministerial mistakes or muddles,
from the British Blue Book, as before, p. 47) ;
(I quote again
U. S. Legation, London, March 29, 1869.
My Lord :
I have the honor to receive youT note of the 27th instant, and shall look with
solicitude to the determination of your Government upon the proposition contained
in my official note to you of the 25th.
That proposition was not made in pursuance of any express instructions of
my Government, but under the ample authority conferred upon me when I came to
this country, and since ; an authority which has never been revoked, or, in any par
ticular, modified.
Repeating my opinion, that the acceptance of the proposition would result in
the ratification by the Senate of the Claims Convention of the 14th of January
last,
I have, <fcc.,
(Signed)
REVERDY JOHNSON.
What hallucination can have seized Mr. Johnson about the extent
of his original powers ? Had he never read his instructions, or had
he forgotten to what degree they must have been modified in order to
enable his negotiation of the convention of January 14th ? And yet he
takes pains to assert that they have “ never been revoked, or [nor], in
any particular, modified.” If it be suggested that his intended mean
ing may, in some degree, be obscured by the unfortunate grammatical
expressions which he uses, and that he intends to say that he is enjoy
ing just as much diplomatic authority on the 29th of March, under
President Grant’s administration, as on the 14th of January, under
Andrew Johnson’s, when he joined Lord Clarendon in signing the
convention of that date; then what shall be said of his capacity to
understand his functions when, with no new authorization, he under
takes to interpolate so important a clause into a State paper which
had long since passed out of the sphere of his control ? Especially
when, as he himself avows in the continuation of the correspondence
(in a letter to Lord Clarendon of April 9th, on the same subject,—Blue
Book, as before, p. 49):
That I did not suggest in the negotiations which led to the convention of Jan
uary the including within it any Governmental claims, was because my instructions
only referred to the individual claims of citizens and subjects.
What was Lord Clarendon to do with an envoy who had such a
strange power of stretching out his instructions, and then, when
brought to the test, letting them fly back again like a piece of Indiarubber—but to finally say to him, as Lord Clarendon reports to his
own envoy at Washington (Blue Book, p. 49, Clarendon to Thornton,
April 9, 1869), he did *?
Mr. Johnson, [as] I said [to him] was, no doubt, acting on his instructions; but
they were the instructions given to him by the last Government, and Her Majesty* s Gov
ernment could not consider a communication not made by the authority of the presets
Government,
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
11
I think this brief epitome of Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s constructive
expansion and contraction of his ministerial functions must have satis
fied the reader that, if Mr. Johnson is no better a judge of the merits
of his country’s claims against England for her unneutral conduct
during the late civil war, than he is of his own powers to treat with
that Government for the settlement of those claims, his aspersion that,
we have obtained by his convention all that we have ever asked, and
that the Government of the United States had, in effect, no case to
begin with, is already well-nigh disposed of.
Before dropping this branch of ■ my subject, however, I must
remark in passing, that Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s transgression of his
instructions cannot for a moment be urged against us by the British
Government in any future negotiation^ upon the same subject, be
cause, by the very terms of the two conventions which the British
Foreign Secretaries signed with him, that«bvernment expressly ad
mitted its obligation to inform itself of the extent of the envoy’s
powers. Thus, it makes a part of the recitals of both of the con
ventions of November 10th and January 14th, as well as of several
other preliminary drafts between the negotiators, that “ the Pleni
potentiaries having communicated to each other their respective full
powers, found in good and due form, have agreed as follows.”
So, besides the holding back by Lord Clarendon on the subject
of interpolating ‘‘Governmental claimsfWinto the treaty, through
caution of Mr. Johnson’s defective powepkt’o agree to that change, as
already referred to, it is noticeable thailLord Stanley, after signing
the convention of November 10th with Mr: Johnson, expressed to the
British Minister at Washington his misgivings of Mr. Johnson’s au
thority to bind his Government. Writing to Mr. Thornton after that
convention had been repudiated by President Johnston’s cabinet, and
for the purpose, as he states, of putting upon record his own doings
as Foreign Secretary in that particular, he says:
[/SZanZey to Thornton, December ft. Blue Book ut sup., p. 19.]
“ Matters remained in this state until the Receipt of your telegram of the
27th of November, up to which time I was under the impression, which was
also shared in by Mr. Johnson, that the Convention which had been signed,
being in accordance with his instructions as construed by him, would meet with
the approval of the United States Government.”
Is not this significant phrase “as construed by him? a full admis
sion that the British Government took their chance of Mr. Johnson’s
work being disowned, as his first convention was, for disregard
of instructions 1 Does it not also lead one to think that both the
British Foreign Secretaries—Lord Stanley, first, and Lord Clarendon,
�12
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON !
afterward—must have had their eyes opened to Mr. Johnson’s dis
torted conception of his ministerial capacity, before concluding any
of the negotiations which they respectively arranged with him ? In
fact, can there be much doubt that, when the late Minister’s whole
proceedings are taken into account, our English friends must have
understood Mr. Reverdy Johnson much better than he did himself?
But I pass from Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s incapacity to understand
his official functions, to consider the truth of his reflection upon his
country’s cause, that his diplomacy had gained for his Government all
that it had ever asked, and that it never had a claim of its own to
present.
Here I must again call Minister Johnson as a witness against
himself. Lord Stanley, who kept a record of his dealings with the
American envoy, as before alluded to, thus sets down the particulars
of one of his earliest interviews with him :
In a conversation which took place at the Foreign Office on the 25th of
September, Mr. Johnson, after discussing with me the subject of Naturalization,
passed to that of the so-called “ Alabama” claims. In this conversation, of
which a memorandum is inclosed, extracted from my notes of the interview,
Mr. Johnson first suggested, as a means of settlement, the payment of a lump sum
op money, or a cession of territory by Great Britain, both of which plans I con
sidered inadmissible, so long as the question of the liability of Great Britain was
denied by us, and remained undecided.—(Pari. Blue Book, ut sup., p. 17.)
The memorandum referred to is given on p. 19 of the Blue Book,
and is substantially to the same effect:
The conversation then turned on the “ Alabama ” claims. Mr. Johnson ad
verted generally, though not in the form of distinct proposals, to various methods
by which this question might be settled. His first suggestion was the payment of a
lump sum of money. Lord Stanley at once declared this to be inadmissible, so
long as the question of our being liable at all was denied by us and undecided by
any mode of reference. AZr. Johnson then talked of some cession of territory, an
idea which Lord Stanley did not think more promising.
I think Mr. Johnson can hardly contend that his two conventions
either stipulated for the payment of “ a lump sum of money,” or
“ the cession of territory.” How, then, can the United States be said
“ to have obtained by them all that we have ever asked ” ? Had not
the American Minister heard from some source or other, before
starting on his mission, that one or the other of these modes of settle
ment was expected? Or, was the suggestion entirely spontaneous,
and (may it not be added) unauthorized, with himself? Then, does
not “ cession of territory ” imply the satisfaction of a national demand?
Or, was Mr. Johnson imagining all the while, that each one of the
sufferers by the “ Alabama ” or the “ Florida ” was to take a town
ship in Canada as an indemnity for the loss of his ship? The same
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
13
idea of cession of territory in satisfaction of these claims crops out
elsewhere in the course of this correspondence. Thus, Mr. Thornton,
writing to Lord Clarendon, under date of April 19th (lb., p. 53),
says, [this] “ mode of settlement [that is, by cession of territory]
has frequently been hinted at to me.”
Whether such a form of indemnity is a desirable or expedient
one for the United States, or whether indeed the cession of territory
has any legitimate connection with the solution of the Alabama ques
tion at all, it is-quite superfluous for the writer to undertake to settle.
But, that the agitation of such a demand, and*, by Mr. Johnson him
self, when freshly arrived in England, quite Contradicts his assertions,
that “ we have obtained all that we ever asked,land that “ the Govern
ment [of the United States] never exacted anything on its own ac
count,” seems to the writer too plain for further Comment.
I hasten to the more substantial matter of the total abandonment
by Mr. Johnson, and (I must add) by Mr. Seward, of the national
ground of complaint against Great Britain, connected with the matter
of the Belligerent Recognition of the Rebel Confederacy, and of
which all tangible notice is omitted jn both of the Conventions of
November 10th and January|l4th. Here I think every American who
has gone to the bottom of the AlabamaBontroversy will agree with
me, that the United States Senate were fully justified in repudiating
Messrs. Seward’s and Johnson’f diplomatic doings in to to.
How stands this point of Belligerenl Recognitionjas left in the
latest convention, and as dwelt upon in preceding negotiations which
led to it ? I fear that I shall havf p|tax the reader’s patience with
some explanatory details on this head ; yet I believe it unavoidable
to a just understanding ^f the merits of the discussion.
Doubtless he will have observed no allusion to Belligerent Re
cognition in Mr. Seward’s original] instructions to Mr. Johnson of
July 20th, which I have already quoted: nor, I may add, am I aware
that Mr. Seward ever afterward po much ^alludes to the subject
throughout the whole correspondence, as published in the blue books
of either country. This is significant, at the outset. Yet it is the
same Mr. Seward who during theJcourse of the civil war had made
no less than six formal demands as American Secretary of State upon
the Governments of England and France for the recall of that ob
noxious measure; and the same Mr. Seward who had a hundred times
at least denounced to those Governments their hasty and unfriendly
recognition of the rebels as a belligerent power, as the fountain and
source of all our foreign woes. Was it intentionally kept out of
�14
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON *
sight, or virtually ignored, in these Johnson-Stanley and JohnsonClarendon conventions, in order to effect some arrangement which
should have the eclat of disposing of a great international contro
versy ?
In reply to this question, and at the same time to meet Mr. John
son’s thrust that we should have got by his convention all that we
ever asked for, 1 beg the reader to go no further back with me into
the record of Mr. Seward’s complaints about the national reparation
expected from England for her hasty recognition of the rebels as bel
ligerents, than six months prior to Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s confirma
tion as Minister. Here is what the American Secretary of State au
thorized Mr. Johnson’s predecessor, Mr. Adams, to say to the British
Government in January, 1868. I only quote an extract:
Department of State,
)
Washington, Jan. 13, 1868. )
Sir: Your dispatch of the 24th of December, No. 1,503, has been received.
You were quite right in saying to Lord Stanley that the negotiation in regard to
the so-called Alabama claims is now considered by this Government to have been
closed without a prospect of its being reopened. With reference to the conversa
tion, which occurred between yourself and his lordship on the subject of a recent
dispatch of Mr. Ford [British Secretary of Legation at Washington], in which
Mr. Ford gave an account of a conversation which he had with me, it would per
haps be sufficient to say that Mr. Ford submitted no report of that conversation,
nor did he inform me what he proposed to write to Lord Stanley. I may add that
either Mr. Ford or Lord Stanley, or both, have misapprehended the full scope of
what is reported by Mr. Ford as a suggestion on my part.
Both of these gentlemen seem to have understood me as referring only to mu
tual pecuniary war claims of citizens and subjects of the two countries which have
lately been extensively discussed. Lord Stanley seegis to have resolved that the
so-called Alabama claims shall be treated so exclusively as a pecuniary commercial
claim, as to insist on altogether excluding the proceedings of Her Majesty’s Government
in regard to the war from consideration, in the arbitration which he proposed.
On the other hand, I have been singularly unfortunate in my correspondence,
if I have not given it to be clearly understood, that a violation of neutrality by the
Queen!s proclamation, and kindred proceedings of the British Government, is regarded
as a national wrong and injury to the United Stales; and that the lowest form of sat
isfaction for that national injury that the United States could accept, woidd be found
in an indemnity, without reservation or compromise, by the British Government to
those citizens of the United States who had suffered individual injury and damages by
the vessels of war unlawfully built, equipped, manned, fitted out, or entertained and
protected in the British ports and harbors, in consequence of a failure of the British
Government to preserve its neutrality.
WM. H. SEWARD.
0. F. Adams, Esq., <tc., <fcc.
This, I venture to think, is a very moderate and just statement of
the American claim, and one which will never be substantially de
parted from by the country in any settlement of the question hereafter
to be arranged. Had Mr. Reverdy Johnson never heard of it? Does
either of his conventions recognize il a national wrong and injuryor I
provide for its “indemnity without reservation or compromise” “to
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS,
15
those who have suffered individual injury”? Let us look a little
more closely at Mr. Johnson’s dealings with Belligerent Recognition,
since, as we have seen, Mr. Seward keeps an ominous silence in re
gard to it.
So far as I can find, the only mention at any time of the subject
just named, on Mr. Johnson’s part, occurred in one of his early inter
views with Lord Stanley, prior to the signing of the 'convention of
November 10th, and is thus reported by Lord Stanley in a dispatch
to Mr. Thornton, under date of October 21st. The negotiation of the
first convention, it would seem from one of Mr. Johnson’s own letters,
was about this time just being entered upon:
In this conversation little was said as to the point on which the former nego
tiations broke off, viz.: the claim made by*the United States Government to raise be
fore the arbiter the question of the alleged premature recognition by Her Majesty’s
Government of the Confederates as belligerents* Ifstated/rt^lMr. Reverdy Johnson that
we could not, on this point, depart from the position which we had taken up; but 1 saw
no impossibility in so framing the reference, and that by mutual consent, either tacit or
express, the difficulty might be avoided.—Blue Book, ut sup, p. 10.
As the subject is dropped from this tifee forth by the American
envoy, so far as can be learned from the published correspondence of
either Government, are we to conclude thatfjbe British proposition
was at once submitted to, and that that Government, being no longer
importuned to depart from its. ppsiti^g it was henceforth mutually
agreed between the two negotiator! to concert “how not to do it”?
Whethei’ such an agreement, yas Owl® ever entered into by them
or not, it is plain that it was most effectively carried out, so far as the
American Minister was concernedly the convention of November
10th, the terms of which, so fai* as this point is concerned, I am about
to cite. Meanwhile, I must not deprive the reader of Mr. Johnson’s
report of his own doings on thaf head to the Department of State,
showing that Lord Stanley’s ingenious.-devicewas^at least, not un
favorably entertained by him. Says Mr.Johnson, writing home to
Mr. Seward, under date of the verg day of signing the first conven
tion (November 10th), and expressing his own gratification at what
he had achieved :
It is proper that I should give, as briefly as may be necessary, my reasons for
assenting to the convention, or rather to some of its provisions: 1. You have here
tofore refused to enter into an agreement to arbitrate the '•Alabama claims unless this
Government would agree that the question of its right to acknowledge as belligerents
the late so-called Southern Confederacy be also included within the arbitration. You
will see by the terms of the first and the fourth articles, that that question, as well as
every other which the United States may think is involved in such claims, is to be be
fore the commissioners or the arbitrator. This is done by the use of general terms,
and the omission of any specification of the questions to be decided. And my authorlily for agreeing to this is found in your original instructions of the 20th of July last,
Kind is indeed to be found in the correspondence between yourself and my predecessor
regarding these claims.—N. Y. Times, ut sup.
�16
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON !
I have already quoted the last paragraph, as above, in another con
nection. It deserves a repetition, however, as showing that while Mr,
Johnson professed to have read and to be familiar with the instruct
tions given to his predecessor, Mr. Adams (among which was this re
cent letter of January 13, 1868, instructing Mr. A. that the United
States claimed a national as well as a pecuniary indemnity), Mr. John
son believes that he can find in those instructions an authority (I) for
dexterously declining to insist upon the very same demand. I pray
the reader’s special attention to Mr. Johnson’s devise for giving the
go-by to the very point which he reminds Mr. Seward that he (Mr.
Seward) had always made a sine qua non in arbitration.
“ You will see by the terms of the first and fourth articles, that
that question [Belligerent Recognition] * * * * is to be before the
commissioners or the arbitrator. This is done by the use of general
terms and the omission of any specification of the questions to be de
cided” Rather a novel mode of getting a point before an arbitrator
—is it not ?—“ to omit all specification of the question to be decided ! ”
Could a better exemplification be found of the maxim, that“ language
is not intended to express men’s ideas, but to conceal them ? ”
And yet, will it be believed of this brave exponent of American
rights—this successful delineator of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet
left out—that, writing home to the Secretary of State, in that same
obnoxious letter of February 17th, from which I have so often quoted,
Mr, Reverdy Johnson—after his work is all done—after he “has met
the enemy and is theirs,” and is giving his version of how it happened
—could have expressed himself about the importance of Belligerent
Recognition to the American case, as follows ?
Supposing, then, that the [Blockade] proclamation of the President was known
to this Government [the British] when they declared the insurgents to be bel
ligerents—a question of fact which I do not propose to examine—it furnished no
justification for the action of this Government; and if it was not jusified, as I confi
dently believe was the case, the act is one which bears materially upon the question
whether the Government is not bound to indemnify for the losses occasioned by the
Alabama and other vessels, for then that vessel and the others could not have been con
structed or received in British ports, as they would have been in the estimation of En
glish law, as well as the laic of nations, piratical vessels. They never, therefore,
would have been on the ocean, and the vessels and the cargoes belonging to Ameri
can citizens destroyed by them would have been in safety. Upon this ground,
then, independent of the question of proper diligence, the obligation of Great Britain
to meet the losses seems to me to be most apparent.
Weighty and just words those ! and which it is to be hoped will
be remembered by our English friends when they are quoting the rest
of Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s record against us ! But what a pity that
they had not been uttered to the British Foreign Office before the two
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
IT
conventions of November 10th and January 14th were signed ! And
still more, what a pity that they had not found a formal expression in
those national compacts, instead of the ingenious device of “omitting
any specification of the question to be decided ” !
But I am detaining the reader too long from the text of the Con
vention of November 10th. Here are its three important articles, so
far as they touch the “Alabama” controversy—the only reference to
the claims throughout the document. Indeed, buKfor these it would
not appear that the existence of an “ Alabama,” or an “ Alabama ”
grievance, had even so much as -.been Jieard of before by the parties
signitary.
Article IV.
The commissioners shall have power to adjudicate upon the class of claims re
ferred to in the official correspondence between theEtwo»^?overnments as the “ Ala
bama ” claims; but before any of such claims is taken into consideration by them,
the two high contracting parties shall fix upon some«sovereign or head of a friendly
State as an arbitrator in respect of such claims, to whom such class of claims shall
be referred in case the commissioners shall be unable to come to an unanimous
decision upon the same.
Article
V
In the event of a decision on any of the claims mWtioned in the next preced
ing article being arrived at by the arbitrators-involving a question of compensa
tion to be paid, the amount of such compensation shall be referred back to the
commissioners for adjudication; or, in*the eyent*®&-their nbMoeing able to come
to a decision, it shall then be decided by the arbitrator appointed by them, or who
shall have been determined by lot according’’fgfrthe provisions of Article I.
Article
VI.
With regard to the before-mentioned “Alabama” class of claims, neither Gov
ernment shall make out a case in support of its position, nor shall any person be
heard for or against any such claim. The official correspondence which has al
ready taken place between the two Governments, respecting the questions at issue,
shall alone be laid before the commissioners; and (in the-event of their not coming
to an unanimous decision, as provided in Article IV.), then before the arbitrator,
without argument, written or verbal, and without the production of any further
evidence.
The commissioners unanimously, or the arbitrator, shall, however, be at liberty
to call for argument or further evidence, if they or he shall deem it necessary.
The reader will have taken notice of the phrase used in the first
line of Article IV., “ the commissioners shall have power to adjudicate,”
which I have taken the liberty to dtllicise. While in the previous
articles it is stipulated that all other claims embraced in the arbitra
tion are to be laid unreservedly before the commissioners or arbitrator,
and it is made their business to hear them, the so-called “Alabama”
claims are only to be permitted an auditing, as it were, by special
grace. While blockade-breakers and Confederate bondholders may
8
�18
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON:
claim the commissioners’ ear and enforce the most unlimited audience,
the sufferers by the “ Alabama” may think themselves fortunate if
they get a hearing at all. Rather a descent—must not one call this ?—
on the 10th of November, from the American envoy’s demand on the
25th of September, “ of the payment of a lump sum of money,” or
“ a cession of territory,” as “ a means of settlement.”
And then, if the commissioners see fit to give the “ Alabama ”
claimants a hearing at all, what sort of a hearing is this which is se
cured for them ? “ Neither government shall make out a case in sup
port of its position, nor shall any person he heard for or against any
such claim. The official correspondence * * * shall alone he laid
before the commissioners, and, in the event of their not coming to an
unanimous decision, * * * then before the arbitrator, without
argument, written or verhcd, and without the production of any further
evidence."
“ The commissioners, unanimously, or the arbitrator, shall, however,
be at liberty to call for argument or further evidence, if they or he shall
deem it necessary.” Must it not have been a bad subject enough which
did not bear a discussion beyond limits as narrow as these? Neither
party to go to the bottom of their case, neither testimony nor argu
ment to be heard in support of it, and an unanimous decision, or else
the whole matter to be left to lot! One would think that with such
a hearing as this, it was quite unnecessary to stipulate beforehand for
“the omission of the specification of any question to be decided” by
the arbitrator. Indeed, the leading thought uppermost in the negoti
ator’s mind must have been, literally, that the least heard of the
“Alabama” claims the better.
What possible excuse can Mr. Johnson give for such a one-sided
and delusive treatment of a serious question as this, unless he was in
dulging the idea that he had achieved a master-stroke of policy in
getting the “ official correspondence of the two governments ” before
the eyes of the umpire ? If this was to be the great equivalent, I beg
to ask if the American envoy was not at all aware that the greater
part of the American case, national and individual—as one might
also say—is not contained, or not developed, in that correspondence ?
That, so far as public or private damage is concerned, the case of the
“ Florida,” for instance, is hardly touched upon by it ? That the facts
connected with the final escape of the “Alabama” from Liverpool,
through the negligence or treachery of the custom-house officials of
Liverpool during the last thirty-six hours of her stay in British
waters, and before finally quiting the Welsh coast—one of the strong
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
19
est features in the American case, as I venture to think—are scarcely
so much as alluded to in either Mr. Seward’s or Mr. Adams’ dis
patches ? And, that that correspondence is altogether silent upon the
great point of the wrong inflicted upon the country, by the original
concession and continued persistence in the recognition of a belliger
ent status to the Rebel Confederacy, when that confederacy had never
once complied with the condition precedent upon which alone Lord
Russell declared, on the 6th of May, 1861, it was granted, viz.: that
the newly-acknowledged belligerents should have prize ports and prize
courts? Was not Mr. Johnson, aware, further,that.this same official
correspondence, whose efficacy he is perhapsRpdn tiding in, altogether
overlooks the pertinency of the repeated admission by the British
Government, during the war, of the validity and efficiency of the
American blockade long before the “Alabama”—certainly long be
fore the “ Shenandoah ”—was coaled, provisioned, and manned in a
British outport, under the guise of a legitimate ship-of-war of a dulyrecognized belligerent power ?
These are but a few of the omissions siich as I would ask if the
American Minister was ignorant of yhen he'was possibly laying such
stress upon the efficacy of the United States’ official correspondence.
I certainly adduce them in no spirit ^fault-finding with the able and
faithful exponents of bur foreign rel'^^f during the late war. All
things are not possible to men so bwffiurdened with national cares as
were those gentlemen, and I heartily jo® in the meed of praise which
a grateful country has so justly conceded'them for their patriotic
services at that trying period. Yet on the review df the whole work of
the civil war, now that time has been given for the deliberate examination
of its records, is it to be presumed thataomissions like the above, and
others of equal or greater importance shbuld have^scaped the atten
tion of the American representative, wh<®wa^ intrusted with the man
agement of the national case against England?* ■ If such a presump
tion is not admissible, then Mr. Johnsoggirtuallyabandoned his cause
in letting the official correspondence stand alike fdiTevidence and argu
ment—law and fact—justice and discretion—in the decision of these
claims. If, on the other hand, hi was ignorant of. the glaring defects
embraced in that presentation of our case,“hen his submission of it to
arbitration, upon that evidence alone, was worse than asking for an
award upon a point not specified.
I have thus dwelt at greater length upon the Convention of No
vember 10th, than may have seemed expedient, because, as it was
mainly Mr. Johnson’s work (Mr. Seward, I believe, in ignorance of
�20
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON:
its real tenor, only stipulating for the change of the seat of arbitration
from London to Washington), it serves to show how little reliance is
to be placed upon the American Minister’s assertion, when he is turn
ing against his country, and declaring that, as a Government, it never
had any case to begin with.
The text of Mr. Johnson’s Convention of November 10th reached
Washington in due course of mail in about a fortnight. Shortly after
its arrival, and while it was under consideration by the President and
his cabinet, Mr. Johnson telegraphed to Mr. Seward for permission to
go on and complete further negotiations on the “San Juan” question.
The following is Mr. Seward’s reply to Mr. Johnson’s telegram, show
ing the first impression of the Secretary of State of Mr. Johnson’s
“ Alabama ” labors :
Washington, November 26, 1868,
Reverdy Johnson, Esq., <fcc., <fco.:
Let San Juan rest. Claims Convention [that is, Alabama Claims Convention],
unless amended, is useless. Wait for dispatches, Friday or Saturday.
WM. H. SEWARD.
*
Mr. Seward followed this up with a letter of the next day, con
taining a detailed statement of objections to the treaty, and coupled
with a memorandum of alterations which he deemed necessary. As
I have not room for giving these documents entire, I must content my
readers with the summary of them, presented a day or two after, by
Mr. Thornton, to the Foreign Office, and published in the Blue Book,
already quoted, p. 22.
Says Mr. Thornton, writing to Lord Stanley, November 30th:
Mr. Seward received, on the 24th instant, the Convention upon Claims, signed
by your Lordship and Mr. Reverdy Johnson on the 10th instant.
On the 26th, Mr. Seward called upon me and informed me that the contents of
the convention were not in accordance with the instructions which had been given to
Mr. Reverdy Johnson ; that the President and his colleagues could not approve of
certain of the stipulations comprised therein ; and that they were unanimously of
opinion that, in its present form, the convention would not receive the sanction of the
Senate. Upon the latter po nt I could not but concur. Mr. Seward confessed
that it was possible that some excuse might be made for Mr. Johnson’s not having
kept more closely to his instructions, because as some of these were given by
telegrams in answer to Mr. Johnson’s questions sent by the same channel, Mr.
Seward may have misunderstood the former, and Mr. Johnson may not have fully
comprehended the instructions sent in reply. *
*
* Mr. Seward has
pointed out to Mr. Reverdy Johnson that he had always intended, and so instructed
him, that a protocol, not a convention, should be signed with regard to the “ Ala
bama” and war claims, in the same manner, and with the same condition, as that
upon the “ San Juan ” question. I have certainly always understood this to be the
case, and I believe that my correspondence with your Lordship has given indica
tions of this conviction on my part. *
*
* The United States Govern
ment likewise object to the unanimous decision required by Article IV. for the
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
21
" Alabama ” claims, whereas the other claims may be decided by a majority of the
commissioners. This they consider unjust, and are even more sensitive about it
than upon the subject of the umpire. *
*
* No instructions had been pre
viously given to Mr. Johnson to make any positive declaration with regard to the “Ala
bama” claims, so as to distinguish them from the others.
If Article IV. were canceled, Article V. would naturally have the same fate.
The United States Government strongly object to Article VI., because it does
not allow either Government to make out a ease in support of its position, nor any
person to be heard for or against the “Alabama” claims; whereas both these steps
are allowed with regard to other claims, and they do not see why a prejudicial
distinction should be stipulated in the convention against the “Alabama” claims,
which would render the sanction of the Senate more doubtful, although they ac
knowledge that little could be added to what is contained in the official correspond
ence. [A point upon which the writer has ventured to express his entire dissent
as above.] They also object, for the reasons already mentioned, to the decision
being necessarily unanimous, both with regard to the claims themselves, or to the
[not?] calling for argument or further evidence. They, therefore, ask that
Article VI. may be canceled, or that it may be substituted by the following
words:
“ In case of every claim, the official correspondence which has already taken
flace between the two Governments respecting the question at issue, shall be laid
efore the commissioners ; and in the event of their not coming to a decision there
upon, then before the arbitrator; either Government may also submit further evi
dence and further argument thereupon, written or verbal.” *
*.
*
*
*
* Should your Lordship be able to agree to these modifications,
Mr. Seward has repeatedly assured me that the Senate are committed to the ac
ceptance of the convention so modified, and that he is convinced they will sanc
tion it,
I have taken pains to cite so much from Mr. Thornton in expla
nation of the points of disagreement between Mr. Johnson’s first con
vention and Mr. Seward, because, as these points were nearly all
eventually conceded by the British Government in the second conven
tion of January 14th, it puts the reader essentially in possession of the
terms of that convention, and, at the same time, shows how little Mr.
Johnson had conformed, in his first convention, either to the instruc
tions or to the wishes of his own Government. This report of Mr.
Thornton’s, however, gives Mr. Johnson the benefit of his additional
instructions by telegraph, which he may have misunderstood, as Mr.
Seward charitably suggests, but of which Mr. Johnson himself, as we
have seen, seems disposed to make but little account. This report of
Mr. Thornton’s suggests, further, another unpleasant feature in Mr.
Seward’s diplomacy, which the American brochure of diplomatic cor
respondence referred to does not disclose, I believe, viz., that the
Secretary of State was undertaking to speak for, and to pledge before
hand, the concurrence of the United States Senate in his negotiations.
What business, I would ask (if Mr. Thornton’s report is accurate on
this point), had the American Secretary of State to make any such
compromising assurance as this for a branch of the Government en
tirely independent of his own ? What did he mean by saying that
�99
I
0
-
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON:
the Senate were committed to the ratification of the doings of the I
Executive, when he knew that a few short months before a large ma
jority of the members of that body had voted for the removal of the
President for high crimes and misdemeanors, and many of the Sen
ators still believed his continuance in office a violation of the Consti-J
tution ?
But 1 must hasten on to the terms of the second convention. The
reader is, doubtless, familiar with Senator Sumner’s vehement and
effective denunciation of its shortcomings ; its failure to provide for
the settlement of the national grievance; its huddling-up blockade
running and Confederate bond-holding claims in the same category
with unneutral and unfriendly raids upon the peaceful commerce
of a friendly nation ; its leaving to lot whether any indemnity, even
of a pecuniary nature, should be granted to the individual sufferers;
and its total disregard of the settlement of the principles of the law
of nations involved in the controversy. Without troubling the reader
with a repetition of the energetic and convincing statements of that
now highly-famous speech on these heads, and, still more, without
undertaking to enter into the general merits of some other of its
much-controverted positions, I cannot forbear attempting to add a few
criticisms upon the terms of the treaty, and the negotiations attending
it, which seem to me to materially aid the Senator’s primary and chief
contention, viz., that it was equally the duty, as it was the constitu
tional prerogative, of the United States Senate, emphatically to re
pudiate the “ Claims” convention of January 14th.
In the first place, I beg the reader’s attention to its insufficient
setting-forth of the subject-matter of the controversy. We have al
ready seen with what bare toleration Mr. Reverdy Johnson secured
any mention at all of the Alabama claims in his first treaty of Novem
ber 10th.
Passing now to his second—which, it should be said in his favor,
was negotiated with the full concurrence of the Secretary of State,
and for which Mr. Seward took pains, in a letter dated J anuary 20th, to
express to him “ the President’s high satisfaction with the manner in
which you have conducted these important negotiations ”—it will be
found that Mr. Johnson hardly stipulates for a more respectful cog
nizance of the same claims by the commissioners in the later than in
the earlier treaty. The term “ Alabama ” occurs but once in the
whole document, and then in a parenthetical kind of way, as if the
American negotiator had been afraid to bring his bantling upon the
carpet at all. While other—the most trifling or the most truculent—
�THE ALABAMA. NEGOTIATIONS.
23
claims, running back to 1853, boldly raise their heads and challenge a
hearing, it is only in a secondary and subordinate capacity, introduced
by the phrase, which most writers would have been likely to enclose
in brackets, e. g. (“ including the so-called 1 Alabama’ claims”), that
the American grievance is permitted to present itself at all for arbi
tration. I believe the reader will not regret an opportunity of seeing
this for himself in the actual document, though at the cost of a few
moments’ delay. I shall not hav® occasion, by any means, to cite the
entire instrument.
The preamble to the conventi®. runsi as follows : [I quote from
the parliamentary copy, p. 36.]
Whereas claims have at various times since the exchange of the ratifications
of the Convention between Great Britain and thex-United States of America,
signed at London on the Sth of February, 1853, bee® made upon the Government
of Her Britannic Majesty on the part of citizens of the United States, and upon
the Government of the United States on the part of subjects on Her Britannic
Majesty; and whereas some of such claims are still pending, and remain un
settled, Her Majesty, the Queen, <&c., and the President, <fcc^: being of opinion
that a speedy and equitable settlement of all such claims will contribute much, to
the maintenance of the friendly feelings which subsist between the two countries,
have resolved to make arrangements for that purpose by means of a Convention,
and have named as their plenipotentiaries to confer and agree thereupon, viz.;
[The Earl of Clarendon on the part of Great Britain, and Reverdy Johnson, Esq.,
on the part of the United States.] Who, after having communicated to each other
their respective full powers, found in good and due form, have agreed as follows:
[Then follows Article L, from which I need wlynsite a few lines
to make good my purpose.]
Article I.—The high contracting parties agreflj that all claims on the part
of subjects of Her Britannic Majesty upon the Government of the United States,
and all claims on the part of citizens of the»'4United States upon the Government
of Her Britannic Majesty, including the so-called “Alabama” claims, which may
have been presented to either Government for its interposition with the other,
since the 26th of July, 1853, the day of the exchange of the ratifications of the
Convention, concluded between Great Britain and the United States of America,
at London, on the 8th of February, 1853, and which yet remain unsettled.; as
well as any other such claims which may be presented within the time specified
in Article III. of this Convention [that is, two years from the first sitting of the
Commissioners], whether or not arising out of the late civil war in the United
States, shall be referred to four Commissioners to be appointed in the following
manner, &c.
This is all the introduction to the Commissioners’ notice which
the “Alabama” claims could secure throughout the document, at
Messrs. Johnson and Seward’s hands; and I leave it to the candid
reader’s judgment, whether such a mention by the way-side and in a
parenthesis, as it were, of reclamations so important to the individual
Isufferers, and to the American people at large, looks either manly or
Bstatesmanly. I say nothing about defining what “ so-called ‘■Alabama'
�24
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON:
claims ” is intended to embrace; whether, for instance, it takes in
devastations by the 44 Florida,” the “ Shenandoah,” and other similar
vessels; though one would think that if it is so intended, it should not
have been left to the generosity of our opponents to concede it, at
the hearing. But what a shuffling evasion and shame faced dodging
of the main issue to be tried, thus to treat it as if it were a matter
not to be named; or, rather, naming it the “so-called 'Alabama’
claims.” Were not the grievances sustained by the United States and
its citizens during the four long years’ practice of British Neutrality
and Rebel Equality worth but four words in the treaty of final settle
ment ? Or, shall we call this another case of 44 wisely omitting any
specification of the question to be decided ” ?
So far as Mr. Reverdy Johnson had any agency in providing for
this lame and impotent statement of the American grievance, I think
the spirit which inspired his diplomacy is well illustrated by a short
extract from one of his dispatches to the Secretary of State, written
after Mr. Johnson had entered upon the negotiation of the second
convention with Lord Clarendon. The dispatch bears date December
24, 1868, and was dictated at a time when the Minister had digested
his irritation at Mr. Seward’s telegraphic repudiation of his first
treaty, and when he had begun to indulge in hopeful visions of suc
cessfully negotiating a second. I quote only a short extract, which,
however, will fairly bear separation from the context:
[Johnson to Seward, December 24, N. Y. Times, ut swp.J
I am perfectly satisfied that every member of the Cabinet is most anxious to
bring the controversy in regard to the “ Alabama ” claims to a satisfactory termi
nation, and I trust, therefore, that you will be able to concur substantially in the
propositions which will be made in the dispatch to Mr. Thornton.
I can get the “ Alabama ” claims specifically mentioned as among the claims
to be submitted to the Commissioners; and this I think most important.
Wonderful! The representative of his country’s rights can even
get the American claims 44 wzenft'onerf ” in that submission which he is
about to make in perpetual foreclosure of their further prosecution !
And li this he thinks most important.” He does not purpose on this
occasion to 44 altogether omit any specification of the question to be
decided
but he is so fortunate as to hope for a mention of his case
in the Commissioners’ hearing. Fortunate Minister ! Could ambas
sadorial courage dare more! Could diplomatic finesse achieve a
greater triumph!
More seriously, did Mr. Reverdy Johnson believe the “so-called
4 Alabama ’ claims ” a sham and a humbug ? Or was he attempting
to cajole his countrymen by taking such official care of their interests,
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
25
as the above, and then proclaiming to the world, in his numerous
after-dinner speeches, that the “Alabama” question was settled once
for all, and the good understanding of the two countries henceforth
irrevocably secured ?
In the second place—to continue my comments on Mr. Johnson’s
second convention—if the critic of this convention looks- for any re
cognition in it, much more for any satisfaction likely to grow out of
it, of that “ national wrong and injury to the United States,” resulting
from “ the violation of neutrality by the Queen’s proclamation and
kindred proceedings of the British Governments’ which we have seen
was insisted upon by Mr. Seward, as late as January 13, 1868, he will
find himself equally disappointed as in regard to the earlier conven
tion of November 10th. If Mr. Johnson had never so much as heard
that the United States “ exacted anything on its own account ”—to
quote again his'own language in the letter of the 17th of February—
(which it should be said, again, in 'his favor, Mr. Seward calls “ an
able and elaborate paper ”)—how could he be expected to do other
wise than keep silence upon this head? To be sure, he says in this
very same letter, that if it [the Recognition of Rebel Belligerence]
was not justified, as I confidently believe was the case, the act is one
which bears materially upon the question, whether the Government
is not bound to indemnify for the losses occasioned by the “Alabama,”
[and] “ upon this ground, independent of the question of proper
diligence, the obligation of Great Britain to meet the losses seems to
me to be most apparent! If so very apparent, would it not have been
worth at least a casual mention—sajS|for instance, as good as the
parenthetical allusion to the “ so-called {Alabama! claims ”—in a treaty
which was to discharge the two countries of all shadow of animosity
against each other forever ?
But since Mr. Johnson is so confident that the Government of the
United States “never exacted any thing on itl own account,” and, as
he says elsewhere in his letter of February 17th, “ the^depredations of
the Alabama were of property in which our nation had no direct pe
cuniary interest,” I should like to be informed if he never heard that
one of the ships sunk by the Alabama was the United States ship of
war the Hatteras—a gunboat of considerable size, seventeen of whose
officers and crew were killed and drowned, and a hundred and upward
of whom were made prisoners. Pray, has the United States no inter
est, pecuniary or national, in that act of war or piracy? Did it not
cost a naval engagement also with the “ Kearsarge,” and the wounding
of several of our seamen, to finally give the quietus to the “ Alaba4
�26
MB. EEVEBDY JOHNSON:
ma’s” depredations ? And, if the question is of direct pecuniary dam
age nationally, did not the chase of that marauding sea-rover and her
kindred consorts cost the United States millions of dollars of expense,
without reckoning the more remote destruction of that private com
merce whose value Mr. Reverdy Johnson finds it so difficult to esti
mate ?
Whether it is below the dignity of a great nation to make a
reclamation for its governmental losses, such as those just named, sus
tained by the United States in its national capacity, is one thing; but
that a substantial national claim on that score exists pecuniarily,
should it once be thought worth while by the United States to enforce
it, is as certain as that some of those destructive corsairs were negli
gently allowed to escape in violation of British municipal law, and that
all of them were afterward treated with unneutral hospitality in Brit
ish outports, in violation of the public law of nations.
But returning to Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s masterly inactivity in
negotiating, or rather in not negotiating, for a hearing of the points of
belligerent recognition and national indemnity, I must not overlook
an extraordinary admission of his, connected with his attempt to get
them included in the second treaty, by way of a supplementary com
mission, as already referred to, which is reported by Lord Clarendon
to the British Minister at Washington. In a dispatch to Mr. Thorn
ton, dated March 22d (Blue Book, ut sup., p. 45), Lord Clarendon
writes as follows:
Mr. Reverdy Johnson called upon me to-day to propose that an amendment, of
which I inclose a copy, should be made to Article I. of the convention, as he
thought it would satisfactorily meet the objections entertained by the Senate to
the convention, and would secure its ratification by that body.
I remarked to Mr. Johnson that his proposal would introduce an entirely new
feature into the convention, which was for the settlement of claims between the
subjects and citizens of Great Britain and the United States; but that the two
Governments not having put forward any claims on each other, I could only sup
pose that his object was to favor the introduction of some claim by the Government
of the United States for injury sustained on account of the policy pursued by Her
Majesty’s Government.
Mr. Reverdy Johnson did not object to this interpretation of this amendment,
but said that if claims to compensation on account of the recognition by the British
Government of the belligerent rights of the Confederates were brought forward by the
Government of the United States, the British Government might, on its part, bring
forward claims to compensation for damages done to British subjects by American
blockades, which, if the Confederates were not belligerents, were illegally enforced
against them.
That is to say—■“ If you, Lord Clarendon, will be so good as to let
governmental claims into the scope of the treaty, to satisfy those un
reasonable United States Senators, I, Reverdy Johnson, minister ple
nipotentiary and envoy extraordinary of the United States of America,
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
27
will give my consent that the British Governiftent may come upon
the United States for damages for an illegal blockade of the Southern
ports, in case the Confederates were not made lawful belligerents by
President Lincoln’s two blockade proclamations.”
The same proposition, in effect, was more formally repeated by
Mr. Johnson to Lord Clarendon, three days later, in writing. (Par
liamentary Blue Book, ut sup., p. 46, Johnson to Clarendon, March
25.)
Pray, what could the American Minister have been thinking of in
thus suggesting arguments against his Government ? Had he forgot
ten which nation he represented ? and was he all the while supposing
himself a British envoy ? Or shall we say that such conduct is quite
in keeping with his retorting against his Government, by way of re
taliation for undervaluing his services, that it never had any case to
begin with, and that it had. obtained all that it had ever asked for?
Is not the latest suggestion—that made to Lord Clarendon—the worst
of the two ? For while the former might in some degree have been
palliated by wounded vanity, the latter seems a gratuitous going out
of his way to furnish weapons against the nation whose interests it
was his duty to protect.
And yet can the reader credit it, that when Lord Clarendon, a fort
night later,- was inquiring with particularity into Mr. Johnson’s au
thority to amend the convention, as we have already had occasion to
notice in another connection, Mr. Johnson could have said about this
proposition of his (which of course drew after it the apologetic sug
gestion of the United States being thereby made liable for all the con
sequences of an illegal blockade) as he did ?—“ I felt myself entirely
justified in making it by my instructions from the late Administration
of my Government” (Johnson to Clarendon, April 9,1869, Blue Book,
ut sup., p. 48.)
As one of Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s American constituents, I chalLnge the production of a single line of instructions for any'such un
called-for concession as this, even from the administration of Andrew
Johnson itself. That he cannot bring forward so much as a syllable
to that effect from President Grant’s administration, which alone he
undertook to speak for on the 22d and 25th of March last, I venture
to affirm with all possible positiveness short of actual knowledge;
and until the American Minister can justify himself by some such
authorization from the Executive then in office, what else can be said
of his extraordinary “official” communication to the British Govern
ment, except that he had lost his head, or was intentionally abusing
�28
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON I
his trust ? I believe the former the most rational as well as the most
charitable conclusion of the two, and I trust that’I have said enough
to persuade my reader of the same opinion.
But I pass from Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s individual sayings and
doings, and from the topic of Belligerent Recognition as inexcusably
omitted by him (or by him and Mr. Seward jointly) from the conven
tion of January 14th—inexcusably, at least, on their own showing—•
to briefly notice, in the third place, the equally important omission
from the same State-paper of all statement of principle or recognition
of national ground of indemnity to be effected by means of any award
which the Commissioners or Arbitrator might afterward make under
it in favor of the American private claimants.
Here I must take my text again from Mr. Seward’s dictum of Jan
uary 13, 1868, already quoted. I believe the matter will well bear
a moment’s further attention. Says Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams, just
a year before the signing of the Johnson-Clarendon Convention, “ the
lowest form of satisfaction for that national injury that the United
States could accept, would be found in an indemnity [I leave out the
words “ without reservation or compromise,” for present purposes]
by the British Government to those citizens of the United States who
had suffered individual injury,” etc.
Now, what satisfaction could it be of the “ national wrong and
injury,” felt by the people of the United States, for British unfriendly
neutrality during the civil war, that any sum of money, however
large, should have accrued by a fortunate cast of the Commissioners’
dice to the “ Alabama ” claimants, individually, so long as the Com
missioners did not attempt, and in fact were not authorized, to ad
judicate damages upon principle ?
Granting that the fortunate
recipients of the indemnity would be willing to accept their money
without asking whence or how it came (though most of them, I
believe, would imitate Mr. George B. Upton in being willing to post
pone their private remedy to the paramount claim of the public
wrong), what step forward would have been accomplished by the pro
cess toward conciliating international good-will, or, still more, toward
securing that future co-operation in an amended code of maritime law,
which the experience of the late war has shown to be so necessary to
the future peace of the two countries ? Upon both of these points,
but especially the latter, shall I not have the concurrence of our En
glish friends in the propriety of the rejection of the late treaty-? Are
they not desirous that their money, when paid, if an Alabama indem
nity is ever to be rendered (as I trust, in the interests of public law
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
29
and an advanced civilization, one shortly will be), that it shall be paid
and accepted as a pledge of international satisfaction, and not as a
mere recompense for private loss ?
Thus, if a million of dollars is to be paid because of a defective
observance of neutral precaution in not preventing the original escape
of the “Alabama,” or the “ Florida,” from Liverpool, or of the “ Flor
ida” from Nassau; another million because of the burning of Amer
ican ships by British-built Confederate cruisers, without adjudication,
contrary to that code of maritime warfare which Lord Russell an
nounced on behalf of the British Government, at the outbreak of the
Rebellion, would be insisted on from the newly-created belligerents ;
another million because of the admission of unneutrally-equipped pri
vateers, or so-called public ships of war, into the ports of that neutral
power which had negligently tolerated their original outfit within its
own territory; and other millions or thousands, because of the viola
tion of’this or that just doctrine of international law;—if, I say, these
sums of money are awarded on these respective specific grounds, and
the United States as a Government accepts the money on behalf of its
citizens, thereby virtually giving a receipt in acknowledgment of the
moneys being paid upon such and such a principle—is not the transac
tion an infinitely more satisfactory one to the British taxpayer, than
as if neither tenet of public law nor conciliation of the wounded sen
sibilities of a great maritime competitor had once been taken into
account in the matter ?
For myself, speaking as a humble member of the great American
Republic, I cannot look upon the acceptance by the United States of
any “ Alabama ” indemnity, even in the shape of pecuniary redress
to individual sufferers, in any other light than as a pledge given by
the country to Great Britain—perhaps to the world—that it is itself
bound to make reparation on the same principles and to the same ex
tent, to other nations, for any similar injury, national or private, which
shall hereafter be brought home to its charge. In this sense, it seems
to me that the adequacy of any satisfaction to be exacted and recov
ered by the United States, certainly on national account, is to be esti
mated rather by the responsibility which its acceptance draws after it,
than by its absolute apparent magnitude in the first instance.
Thus, supposing the American Government were to exact and
recover that enormous demand for remote and consequential damages
for English intervention in the late war, which has been construed into
rather than out of Senator Sumner’s late speech—say to the extent of
half the expenses of the war—I cannot doubt that the acceptance of
SB.
�30
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON I
any such sum (provided it could once be collected of Great Britain by
threat of war or otherwise) would pledge the former country to a
responsibility which it would be altogether unwise and inexpedient to
enter into. At least, if the United States are hereafter to be called
into judgment upon the same principles, I do not well see how they
could long avoid becoming nationally bankrupt; certainly so unless
their foreign relations are hereafter to be conducted upon a system of
more scrupulous precaution than has been sometimes seen to prevail.
On the other hand, if the British Government, in making any “Ala
bama” redress—whether unsolicited, or in compliance with an arbi
trator’s award—are content to adapt their indemnity to a low grade of
Q neutral obligation, then, so far as its acceptance draws after it the corre
sponding obligation which I have imagined, the United States may con
sider themselves fortunate that they are thereby exonerated in future
from this or that principle of neutral restraint which Great Britain
has impliedly waived. As a lover of peace and well-wisher to civil
ization, I can only hope that that indemnity may cover as many prin
ciples as possible, and be large enough to fix those principles in the
perpetual remembrance of both countries.
Without attempting further exposition of Mr. Seward’s text of
“ the lowest form of satisfaction for the national injury that the United
States could accept,” I cannot dismiss Mr. Johnson’s charge, that we
have obtained all that we ever asked for, without adding my caveat
against the United States being impliedly estopped from hereafter
stating its case for national reparation in any different way, or to any
different extent, from that which has heretofore been put forward in
its official “ Alabama ” correspondence. Thus, supposing our late
Minister’s allegation to be altogether well founded, by what act or
declaration have the American Government cut themselves off from
demanding a just and adequate indemnity in reparation of public as
well as private injuries, if such reparation is ever to be made ? If,
for instance, the arming and equipment of the “ Florida ” was not
made in the first instance in the port of Mobile, as our diplomatists
have tacitly conceded, but, on the contrary, in Liverpool, or, at any
rate, within British jurisdiction in the Bahamas ; if the equipment of
the Alabama with a crew who were known to be “ going down ” in
the steam-tug Hercules “ to join the gunboat ” in Beaumaris Bay
near Liverpool (amounting to what Lord Russell has himself called
“ going to another port in Her Majesty’s dominion to ship a portion of
her crew ”), has never been sufficiently dwelt upon; if the non-compli
ance by the rebels with the British programme of Belligerent Recogj
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
31
nition at any time during the war, and especially after the American
blockade had been rendered incontrovertibly complete (a period long
prior to the launching of the Alabama, the Georgia, and, much more,
the Shenandoah, as British official concessions establish), has not been as
yet made a part of the American grievance ; if, still more, the deliberate
refusal of the rebels to comply with that programme as manifestoed in
Secretary Benjamin’s “ Instructions to Confederate Cruisers,” published
in the English Confederate official organ in London, in November or De
cember of 1864, several weeks before the “ Shenandoah ” was supplied,
as a regular ship of war, with the forty-five men, the two hundred tons
of coal, and the extra provisions at Melbourne, which were the very
means by which she afterward destroyed our whaling fleet in the
North Pacific Ocean, has never yet been connected with the statement
of the “Shenandoah” claims
if, I say, these and numerous other
points, of perhaps equal or even greater magnitude, have heretofore
failed of their due setting forth on the national behalf, will it be con
tended by any one, even Mr. Johnson himself, that they may not now
be justly advanced by the United States, and “ listened to by the Brit
ish Government, or countenanced by other nations ” ?
For my own part, I think that the argument might as well be
made that no’ claim can be raised for any injury done to the United
States or its citizens by the depredations of the Alabama since Octo
ber 23, 1863 (nine months before she ended her career), because Mr.
Adams on that day proposed to Lord Russell, under Mr. Seward’s
instructions, “ that there was no fair and equitable form of conven
tional arbitrament or reference to which the United States will not be
willing to submit” the question of British responsibility for the
doings of that vessel. It has been British option thus far, until the
late negotiations were so rashly hurried through, to keep this “ Ala
bama ” controversy open; and if the American claim justly grows
the more it is examined and the longer its settlement is deferred, (I
will not say so much the worse for England, but; as I verily believe)
so much the better for civilization, and the establishment of a better
code of international law. Only, for the present, let it be acknowl
edged that the country is to sustain no prejudice for fair dealing
because of these abortive John son-Stanley, Johnson-Clarendon nego
tiations.
And this leads me to say a word, before concluding my already
too extended communication, upon a topic which, as much as anything
else, prompted the making of the communication at all. I mean the
point last suggested, that the United States may possibly have been
�32
Q
MB. REVERDY JOHNSON!
wanting, in some degree, in good faith toward England, in repudiating,
through the action of its Senate, a treaty which had been regularly en
tered into by its Minister at London, and then approved of by its
Executive at Washington. This is a suggestion which is naturally
brought to the notice of every American traveler in Europe, and
which forces itself all the more painfully upon his attention, when he
is informed that the Minister of his own Government has declared
that the treaty in question concedes all that the United States has ever
asked for.
The answer to this suggestion is so simple and conclusive, founded
on the constitutional right and duty of the United States Senate to
reject any treaty inconsistent with their views of its expediency for
the interests of the country, however strongly it may have been ap
proved of by the Executive, or agreed to by the foreign Minister, that
I can promise to be very brief in making it.
Of course it would be quite superfluous to remind any intelligent
American of the co-ordinate and independent power of the Senate of
the United States to reject any treaty submitted to them for ratifica
tion by the President. That the President, or, much more, the Secre
tary of State, or any diplomatic agent abroad, cannot undertake to
pledge beforehand the decision of the Senate in such a case, without
being thereby guilty of the heinous official impropriety, if not of an
impeachable offense, is also too well understood on the American side
of the water to need a moment’s elucidation. But to most Europeans,
and to many Englishmen who have been accustomed only to a
monarchical or imperial form of government, the idea of the treaty
making power not being exclusively vested in the Executive head of
the Government, presents an anomaly such as has hardly ever before
been considered.
To such, therefore, of my readers (if I shall be so fortunate as to
have any), I beg to commend the following short extract from Whea
ton’s Commentaries on the Law of Nations, which states the case as
to the Constitution of the United States in this particular so clearly as
to dispose of the point at once. I would only premise that the
American publicist wrote the passage more than twenty years ago,
for the text of both the French and English editions of his treatise,
and that, therefore, by this time, it ought to be within the knowledge
of Europeans generally.
, The municipal constitution of every particular State determines in whom re
sides the authority to ratify treaties negotiated and concluded with foreign pow
ers, so as to render them obligatory upon the nation. In absolute monarchies it is
the prerogative of the sovereign himself to confirm the act of his plenipotentiary
�THE ALABAMA. NEGOTIATIONS.
33
by his final sanction. In certain limited or constitutional monarchies, the consent
of the legislative power of the nation is in some cases required for that purpose.
In some republics, as in that of the United States of America, the advice and, consent
of the Senate are essential, to enable the Chief Executive Magistrate to pledge the na
tional faith in this form. In all these cases, it is, consequently, an implied condi
tion in negotiating with foreign powers, that the treaties concluded by the executive gov
ernment shall be subject to ratification in the manner prescribed by the fundamental
laws of the State.
Did not the two respective British Foreign Secretaries, who suc
cessively negotiated with Mr. Reverdy Johnson, know of this im
plied condition ” in the due ratification of any American treaty, of
which Mr. Wheaton speaks ? Not only were they apprised of it in
due season, but, as we have seen in the limited abstract of the official
correspondence which we have had occasion to make, both Messrs.
Seward and Johnson were constantly calling it to the notice of the
two Foreign Secretaries, by suggesting that this or that provision
must be adopted in order to secure the Senatorial sanction. It has
even appeared that the American Secretary of State notified the
British Minister at Washington, as one of the reasons foi’ rejecting the
first convention, that in the opinion of the President and cabinet, its
terms would not be satisfactory to the Senate. Whether this were
according to strict official etiquette or not, can there be any doubt that
the British Government were forced to give attention to this constitu
tional requisite in treating with the United States before entering into
the second convention ?
But last and most conclusive of all arguments, can any English
man suggest any shadow of unfairness toward his country in this
action of the United States Senate, in rejecting the second convention
of January 14th, when in the very instrument itself, as well as in every
other draft of a convention to which Mr. Johnson put his name on
behalf of the United States, these words were made a part of the
treaty: “ The present treaty shall be ratified by the President of the
United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate there
of” %
But notwithstanding all this, 1 think I hear some of our English
liberal friends still objecting : “ Perhaps this may be so, legally and
formally, but we do not see how the American Senate could equitably
and fairly accredit Mr. Reverdy Johnson to us by a unanimous vote,
and then, when we strike hands with him, reject the treaty with an
almost equal unanimity. It seems to us that they should have put us
on our guard against giving him our confidence, and not have led us
to think that they thought so differently of him from his namesake,
the President, who had appointed him.”
5
♦
�34
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON :
To which I reply : But how did the Senate know that Minister
Johnson was going to run such a career as he did ? Did they suppose
that when he was instructed only to sound the British Government, he
was about to take upon himself to settle the greatest foreign compli
cation on the national docket ? Did they suppose that Mr. Seward
was going to abdicate his functions, and let the new envoy carry off
the glory of composing a controversy which the Secretary of State
had made it his chief study to manage for six years ? Is it probable
that they imagined that any settlement of the “Alabama” would be
attempted by Mr. Seward himself in the dying hours of the Andrew
Johnson Administration, when that administration had so recently
come within one vote of being summarily deposed? Had not the
British Ministei* at Washington attended the Impeachment proceed
ing? And were not his Government at home duly warned, before en
tering into either convention with Mr. Reverdy Johnson, that that
Minister represented the most obnoxious Executive ever known to
the American Republic ?
If these questions are not enough to silence our murmuring Eng
lish friends, I beg to ask three more:
First. Could the unanimous confirmation of Mr. Reverdy John
son’s nomination, by the United States Senate in July, have encour
aged any false confidences, which were not sufficiently removed by
the equally unanimous repudiation of his doings, in November, by
the very administration which had originally proposed his nomina
tion? ■
Secondly. If Mr. Thornton’s report of the unanimous rejection by
President Johnson and his cabinet of Minister Johnson’s first treaty
had not sufficiently opened Lord Clarendon’s eyes in November, to
the overweening confidence of the American envoy in the success of
his mission, had not the Foreign Secretary’s vision been made suffi
ciently clear on that point as early as April 5th—ten days before the
Senate acted on the second treaty—when he notified the Minister,
that “ Her Majesty’s Government could not consider a communication
[from him] not made by the authority of the present [American]
Government?
And lastly. Are the United States Senate any more to be blamed
for repudiating Mr. Reverdy Johnson and his diplomacy, than was
Andrew Johnson’s Administration—which repudiation as we have
seen was overlooked and deemed satisfactory by the British Govern
ment—or than was the British Foreign Secretary, who it seems re
pudiated both the one and the other, ten days sooner than the Ameri
can Senate itself?
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
35
If the reader, in being kind enough to answer these questions for
himself, will also kindly add, as I hope he will, that he will not trouble
me for further justification of American fairness, either equitable or
technical, in the matter of rejecting Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s second
treaty, I will relieve his much-taxed patience by only asking his
favorable verdict upon the following points, which embody the chief
-conclusions to which my argument has tended:
(1.) That our English opponents in the Johnson-Stanley, John
son-Clarendon negotiations were well aware, from the outset of those
negotiations, that no convention, however, strongly assented to by
the American Minister in London, or approved of by the American
Executive at home, could become a binding treaty upon the United
States, till it had been duly ratified by the consent of the American
Senate.
*
(2.) That there was nothing in the circumstances leading to the
negotiation of the second convention of January 14th, or in the tenor
of that convention itself, which even impliedly forbade the exercise
by the Senate of its ordinary constitutional function of rejecting any
treaty deemed unsatisfactory for the national good.
(3.) That the British Government, in dealing with the Administra
tion of Andrew Johnson—especially after November 3, 1868, when
the election of General Grant to the Presidency had set the seal of
popular approval upon Impeachment proceedings, or at least of con
demnation upon that Administration—were sufficiently put upon
notice, that any important treaty concluded with that obnoxious Exec
utive was more than ordinarily liable to Senatorial criticism and con
demnation.
(4 ) That the convention of January 14th was rightly rejected, on
its merits, by the United States Senate, as an entirely inadequate and
insufficient submission to arbitration of the American grounds of
claim in the “ Alabama ” controversy, either public or private, col
lective or individual.
(5.) That the United States Senate, in rejecting that treaty, ren
dered a favor to the British Government, itself, in preventing the
further prosecution of a scheme of settlement so defective in its
statement of the subject-matter of the dispute, and so totally devoid
of any recognition of principle upon which satisfaction might there
after be awarded or accepted.
(6.) That no discredit ought to attach to the United States from the
extraordinary and unfounded reflections of its late Minister respecting
the rejection of that treaty; because, as we have seen, he scarcely ever
�36
THE ALABAMA. NEGOTIATIONS.
at any time comprehended the nature and extent of his own powers,,
or if he did, rarely complied with them ; because, having his first
convention set aside for a violation of instructions, he sought to amend
his second by an interpolation which was, if possible, a greater breach
of official propriety, and which had to be repudiated by the British
Government itself; because he accompanied that attempt to save his
own work from disgrace with a concession which was at once unworthy
of the suggestion of an American Minister, and at the same time, so
far as appears, purely of his own invention ; because he convicts him
self, by his own showing, of having intentionally agreed to leave out
a most important part of the American claim, under the device of
"a omitting any specification of the point to be decided; because he con
sidered himself fortunate in getting any mention at all of the claim
he represented introduced into the terms of the treaty; and, finally,
because his whole ministerial treatment of the American case was
no better than “ a mush of concession” and such as it is most char
itable to believe resulted rather from ignorance or misapprecia
tion of its merits, or from failing faculties, than from a deliberate pur
pose to sacrifice the great interests, national and international, which
he undertook to represent.
Paris, August 20.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Mr. Beverdy Johnson: the Alabama negotiations, and their just repudiation by the Senate of the United States
Creator
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Bemis, George
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: New York
Collation: 36 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. The Alabama Claims were a series of demands for damages sought by the government of the United States from the United Kingdom in 1869, for the attacks upon Union merchant ships by Confederate Navy commerce raiders built in British shipyards during the American Civil War. [From Wikipedia, September 2017].
Publisher
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Baker & Godwin
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1869
Identifier
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G5238
Subject
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American Civil War
International relations
USA
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Mr. Beverdy Johnson: the Alabama negotiations, and their just repudiation by the Senate of the United States), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Alabama Claims
Conway Tracts
Great Britain-Foreign relations-United States
United States-Foreign relations-1861-1865
United States-Foreign relations-Great Britain