such a settlement as is now proposed. To make the settlement complete, the withdrawal should be from this hemisphere, including provinces and islands." 34

To fancy that Great Britain would even enter a negotiation of this sort was palpably absurd. To put forth such a claim with seriousness would doom the entire negotiation. Yet precisely this may have been Sumner's purpose, with intent to cast discredit on the diplomacy of Grant and Fish. At any rate, the latter understood it so, and as a preliminary to the treaty's ratification, determined to remove Sumner from his influential position."

35

Sumner was not formally deposed. His term as chairman had expired. He merely failed of reëlection, and the important chairmanship fell to Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, erstwhile Secretary of War in Lincoln's cabinet, and later minister to Russia, a man of great experience, who had served five years as a junior member of the committee. Cameron's committee promptly reported to the Senate six treaties which had been negotiated subsequently to the removal of Motley and which Sumner had quietly pigeonholed-a form of sabotage as one might call it on the government machinery. But Sumner was aggrieved. Removal from the party councils was a heavy blow. His services to the War were recompensed with bitterness, due rather to the limitations of his temperament than to any natural vinIdictiveness in Grant.

While this important shift was taking place the preliminary draft of Rose and Fish became the basis of a treaty. It was forged with much solemnity by a Joint High Commission of representatives from both countries. Its sessions opened February 27, 1871, and were carried on in excellent temper. They culminated May 8, 1871, in the Treaty of Washington. Its most significant provision was a formal expression of "the regret felt by Her Majesty's Government for the escape, under whatever circumstances, of the Alabama and other vessels from British control and for

34 Rhodes, James Ford, Op. Cit. VI, 358.

85 This possibility is discussed in Adams, C. F., Before and After the Treaty of Washington (New York Historical Society, 1902), p. 176.

the depredations committed by those vessels."

Provision was made for arbitrating the claims arising from the Alabama. This it was that led to the Geneva Award, to be considered presently.

36

Of interest in the domain of international law was admission by Great Britain of three rules governing neutrality. These, it was contended, were not in force during the Civil War, but they would be a safeguard against such damages in future. For the sake of harmony Great Britain went so far as to admit that it would have been fortunate had these rules been earlier enforced.

While the treaty was still pending the commissioners sought to placate Sumner. On May 9, 1871, Sir Stafford Northcote, one of the commissioners for Great Britain, wrote: "I had a long talk with Sumner, yesterday, and De Grey is to see him to-day. He is very cautious, but I do not think him unfriendly. He is very anxious to stand in well with England; but, on the other hand, he would dearly like to have a slap at Grant. We have paid him a great deal of attention since he has been deposed, and I think he is much pleased at being still recognized as a power." 37 Precautions such as these, however tactful, were not needed. The Senate promptly ratified the treaty.

The treaty was itself preliminary to the famous arbitration at Geneva, at which Chief Justice Alexander Cockburn, for Great Britain, and Charles Francis Adams, for the United States, were joined with a committee of neutral arbitrators named by the King of Italy, the President of the Swiss Confederation, and the Emperor of Brazil respectively. Before these dignitaries, each country argued its own case through a special agent and his counsel, Lord Tenterden and Sir Roundell Palmer for Great Britain; J. C. Bancroft Davis and three associates, William M. Evarts, Caleb Cushing, and Morrison R. Waite for the United States.

The case for the United States was presented badly.

86 Moore, John Bassett, International Arbitrations, I, 519 ff. 37 Adams, C. F., Before and After the Treaty of Washington, p. 184.

Unnecessary allusion was made to British sympathy for the South, an account which good feeling would have recognized as squared by the apology included in the Treaty of Washington. But if on this point Davis showed a want of taste, he betrayed what was far worse, a want of judgment in adopting Sumner's contention that after Gettysburg the war was prolonged solely by Confederate cruisers, and in accordingly demanding reimbursement for all expenses incurred subsequently to July 4, 1863.38

This brought proceedings to a standstill. No British government could admit a claim so drastic. Yet America could not at once relinquish it with a Presidential election forthcoming and the corresponding need to satisfy the voters that their government did not fear the lion's roar. But payment for indirect damages, least of all for imagined prolongation of the war, was no part of Fish's claim. He made this clear to Adams, who had returned to interview his chief, and Adams so informed the British leaders as he stopped at London on his way to renewed sessions at Geneva.

Cockburn, who did not approve the arbitration anyway, now endeavored to postpone it, nominally for eight months, but permanently in fact. But Adams informed him of American willingness to dismiss auxiliary claims, and when the arbitrators finally announced that these claims should be "wholly excluded from the consideration of the tribunal in making its award," Cockburn reluctantly assented to a continuance of the case.89

Argument was completed on August 21st and two days afterward the arbitrators cast their vote upon the several issues. Their opinion was unanimous that Great Britain had no responsibility for the acts of five of the vessels in dispute. On another, on a split vote, the majority acquitted her. For the Alabama, on the contrary, the verdict was unanimous that Britain did owe damages. A majority of three in the one case, of four in the second, held that the

38 A more approving view of the American presentation of the case may be found in Fuess, Claude M., The Life of Caleb Cushing, II, 306-357.

39 Rhodes, James Ford, Op. Cit. VI, 371.

Shenandoah and the Florida represented valid claims, and by a vote of four to one, Cockburn alone dissenting, the total was assessed at $15,000,000.

40

The attitude of Cockburn aroused the resentment of the other arbitrators. He laid aside his rôle of judge to become a special pleader. Men felt he would not play the game, and feared he would disrupt the treaty. In the minds of the three neutral judges he prejudiced his case by contrast with Charles Francis Adams, whose candid honesty and grace of manner wiped out much of the unfortunate impression created earlier by Bancroft Davis. For Davis set Cockburn his contentious example. Blame may therefore be divided, while gratitude remains to the commissioners assembled at Geneva for taking a most impressive forward step toward the peaceful settlement of international disputes." If reaction afterward set in and the world is less advanced at present than it was a half century ago, the Alabama remains as a beacon toward a happier age when lost ground shall be recovered and further progress made.

41

With the British apology conveyed in the Treaty of Washington and the substantial damages awarded at Geneva, the diplomacy of the Civil War was liquidated. And though in the history of the American people it is proper to include not only Grant's second term but perhaps that of Hayes in the Reconstruction era, so far as foreign relations were alone concerned, Reconstruction was already a reality in 1872. The steadfastness of Seward, the caution and restraint of Fish encountering the humanity of Gladstone, produced a settlement not only satisfactory in itself but a landmark in human progress. Diplomacy reposed on an exalted plane.

40 Rhodes, James Ford, Op. Cit. VI, 372-373.

41 Ibid. VI, 373-375.

I

CHAPTER XVIII

A NEW CONCEPTION OF THE NATION'S HONOR

N domestic affairs the second administration of General Grant beheld a rapid decline in national respectability. Public morality reached a lower ebb than at any previous period and not until the era following the World War was it again approximated. There is comfort, therefore, in following the thread of an honorable foreign policy amid so much else that was dark. Here again the credit belongs chiefly to the Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish, who kept his post throughout the entire eight years of the Grant Administration.

THE Virginius Affair

In happy accord with the country's peace traditions, the major incident in this second term's diplomacy was Fish's hesitation and forbearance toward waging war with Spain, a weaker power, when circumstances seemed at first to offer provocation. A crisis arose in October, 1873, in connection. with the Virginius, a filibustering vessel using the American flag to cover operations on behalf of insurgents who still dragged on their weary contest for Cuban liberation. The Virginius was built in the United States. Since 1870 it was Cuban owned. When trouble arose, the vessel was running from Kingston in Jamaica toward a point in Cuba, with a cargo of munitions and a crew and passenger list numbering one hundred fifty-five. A Spanish warship overtaking her, brought her into Santiago where fifty-three members of this crew and passenger list were court-martialed and shot. The affair concerned America doubly. The Virginius flew our flag; eight of the victims of summary execution were our countrymen.

Had final determination of our policy belonged to a hot