Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress with the Annual Message of the President, December 4, 1871
Mr. Moran to Mr. Fish.
Sir: The appointment of General Schenck as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to this court has been cordially welcomed by the nation at large. The press has received the announcement in a friendly manner, and I send herewith an editorial touching his mission, extracted from the Times of to-day. Judging from the tone of public opinion, he will be met in a conciliatory spirit by the government on all questions pending between the two countries.
Indeed, I think there is a sincere disposition here, on the part of both the government and the people, to bring the Alabama and the fishery questions to a friendly and satisfactory close at an early day.
I am, &c.,
[Untitled]
Before the end of this month the new American minister will in all probability have reached England, and by the time Parliament has fairly set to work upon the active business of the session, he will doubtless have broached the substantive issues of his mission to Lord Granville. The irritable feelings which were prevalent three years ago in the United States have in great measure subsided. The disappointment which we, on the other hand, suffered by the unexpected rejection of the Clarendon-Johnson convention, has been healed by the lapse of time. Around us we see the horrid realities of war, the disruption of the European state system, the palsied commerce of two great nations. Although the United States are separated by a broad ocean from these melancholy spectacles, they have only to look hack a few years to warnings scarcely less urgent and appalling. In spite of angry politicians and thoughtless publicists, England and America are too well convinced of the unfruitful miseries of war to challenge it rashly. Of course, the one nation as well as the other cherishes its just pride, its dignified resentment of insult, its resolution to repel dictation. But when intelligent and high-minded statesmen govern affairs, either at Washington or at Westminster, we may reasonably hope that national susceptibilities will not be rashly wounded. What is called the “Alabama question” has dragged its slow length along ever since 1863, when Mr. Adams began to remonstrate against the negligence of the British government. More than once since then we have had a glimpse of a satisfactory settlement, but we have never hitherto reached a point at which we could command a prospect more hopeful than that we have now before us. Rational discussion has done its work on both sides of the Atlantic. Here, in the beginning, we were undoubtedly somewhat cold and unyielding in our refusal to acknowledge any error. As we grew cold, the Americans grew hot. Their demands rose with their rising wrath. Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s well-meant endeavors only served to disappoint just expectations on our side, and to excite a storm of unreasonable but not inexplicable anger on the part of the Americans. When the Clarendon-Johnson convention was repudiated so emphatically at Washington, it seemed imperative for this country to withdraw for the time from negotiation. The United States, in appointing Mr. Motley their minister at St. James, appeared to adopt a similar line. At all events, during Mr. Motley’s tenure of office the question slept. It was re-awakened by the news of Mr. Motley’s recall, and by the [Page 419] somewhat threatening message of the President. The difficulty experienced in filling the vacant place added to the obscurity of the situation. Meantime, Mr. Butler blew his trumpet loudly, and many persons in the United States and in this country echoed his blatant utterances in solemn earnest.
At last we are relieved from uncertainty as to the person with whom we have to deal, if not as to the policy he brings us. General Schenck is one of the most respected politicians of the republican party in America; his position in Congress was almost unique; he was the leader of a powerful party, yet he never arrogated to himself the dictatorship which party leaders are accustomed to assume. It will not be his least recommendation in England that he has consistently and energetically opposed the extravagances of General Butler, and, as General Butler has of late been most mischievous and extravagant wherever Great Britain was concerned, we may hope that General Schenck represents an adverse influence. It is of the utmost moment for us to know what terms of negotiation, if any, he is bringing to us. According to our correspondent at Philadelphia, he is ready to concede much, and to demand terms which our government may, at all events, legitimately debate. An eminent German jurist some months ago traced the lines for a settlement of the Anglo-American claims, and it is said that General Schenck adopts this statement of the issues as the basis of arbitration which he is prepared to suggest in England. It may be that he is not empowered to suggest any such basis, and even if he were, we should be justified, after the experience of the Clarendon-Johnson convention, in dealing cautiously with the proposals of an American minister until we know whether or not they may be ratified by the American people.
Supposing, however, that the rumors which reach us from Washington are correct, and that General Schenck is authorized to treat upon a basis similar to that laid down by Professor Bluntschli, of Berlin, we have yet to pause before we accept the decision of a German jurist on this grave international difficulty. Was Dr. Bluntschli’s conclusion arrived at after hearing an ex parte statement, or would it have been modified if the arguments on the English side had been fully and officially presented? These are points which may yet be raised; but Dr. Bluntschli’s leading decisions, if fairly taken as the bases of arbitration in matters of detail, evade the main objections which prevented former solutions of this difficulty. In effect, if we believe the story we have heard of General Schenek’s mission, the American Government is now content to abandon the preposterous claim for “consequential damage,” and the unintelligible demand for a “formal” apology. Our alleged delinquency in prematurely recognizing the South is altogether set aside, and all the horrible sequence of calamity conjured up in Mr. Stunner’s famous speech is put out of sight. The British government, according to this story, will be asked to pay for the damage done to American shipping by the Alabama, which escaped, through our negligence and the imperfection of our municipal law, from an English port. Furthermore, we are to be called upon to recoup the expenditure of the United States Government upon naval preparations for the repression of the Alabama’s depredations. We are to be taxed with interest on this loss and outlay since the time of its accruing. Finally, we are to be asked to join with the American Government in a declaration “recognizing as of perpetual obligation the rules of international law, of the violation of which the payment of the money is an implied admission.” We cannot assert that any of these points is so unreasonable as not to be fairly matter for diplomatic discussion; indeed, all of them might properly be considered by an equitably constituted arbitrative tribunal. It is for Lord Granville and General Schenck to decide how much either party ought to concede. National irritabilities have now been eliminated, and only great international interests remain to be considered.
The sensible exposition of the question recently put forth before the Historical Society of New York by Mr. Charles Francis Adams, formerly American minister in this country, will disabuse many persons of the mischievous notion that the rantings of Mr. Butler and Mr. Chandler represent the public opinion of the United States. Fortune has not permitted Mr. Adams, who so ably sustained the American claims during the darkest days of the Union, to carry the negotiations with England to a prosperous close, and to reconcile the countries, which were disunited by a temporary and unreasoning misunderstanding. If this were not to be, General Schneck, representing the best and most honorable section of the dominant party in the United States, is probably one of the most useful representatives America at this crisis could send to England. We may be hopeful, let us trust, of a settlement which, without compromising our honor, may satisfy all the legitimate claims of the United States. On our side, we are well assured, there is nothing but a desire to attain, by fair concessions or frank allowances, the settlement of a foolish quarrel which has alienated two great nations allied by blood and by intellectual sympathies. The American people, at first passionately excited at our recognition of belligerent rights in the southern confederacy, enraged beyond measure at the infractions of international law with which we were charged, broke out, when the civil war was ended, into outrageous recriminations. These have died away. Why should a reconciliation be delayed any longer? What Mr. Adams asks in New York Mr. [Page 420] Vernon Harcourt has been asking in language equally moderate at Oxford. Mr. Harcourt, of course, does not yield one of the points advanced in earlier stages of the controversy by Mr. Sumner and others. The alleged responsibility of England for her recognition of the South as a belligerent power, he repudiates as a legal monstrosity and a political imposture. As to our liability for the depredations of the Alabama, he maintains that on strictly legal grounds we could scarcely be rendered responsible for her original escape, but that her subsequent admission to British ports was undoubtedly an error. But in any case, whether we believe we were right or wrong, it is desirable, says Mr. Harcourt, that these questions should be discussed by a competent tribunal. It is eminently perilous to leave them open, and to give weak or dishonest politicians an instrument for embroiling two kindred nations. Daniel Webster’s noble words, which Mr. Harcourt so aptly quoted, express the present feeling of all thoughtful men in England and America: “This constant speculation, this supposition that war may come, is half as bad as war itself. What we want is settled peace, and the conviction that peace will remain until there is some just and sensible cause for war.”