miM.nMATir CORRESPONDENCE AND FOREIGN RELATIONS. 



inciidship of tin- United States by 

 ig iill aid ami comfort l.i their d" 



Whether lliT M.lje ' mill-lit 



would take tin 1 ; lieiicfits or a ditl'ereiit 



WOfl not 1"1IL,' li-l't ill iliMllit ill European 



which ultcrnathc lircat Britain \v. mid elect. 

 ' -; principal Secretary for l-'m-.-i^n A Hairs 



' united a ciiiifere.ice <m tin- :!il nl' May, an- 



the United States mini-.!,. i- in London, 



Mr. Dallas, (hat tliivi- representatives of the so-called 



Souther. i I'onl'cdcr.iey were then in that capital, and 



I Uusself, was willing to see them un- 



nllicialN. Hi- tlit-ii made the important. annonnee- 



li.it there already existed an understanding 



n hrr Majesty' B' Government and that or 



uld lead both to take the same 



recognition, whatever that course might 



i in- I' nited States minister, of course unpre- 

 pared with instructions to meet these revelations, re- 

 plied that his u]>pointed successor, Mr. Adams, was 

 then on his \.>i,a'v, and might be expected within 

 ten or lift .!! days. The secretiiry acquiesced in the 



u-ncy of waiting for the coming of the, new 

 minister. The proposed movement in Parliament 

 ignition was. at the instance of the Secretary 

 for Foreign AlVairs. postponed. 



When t!u- President received an account of the 

 last-mentioned interview, he then was unable, as the 

 United States are yet unable, to perceive how it was 

 thought by her Majesty's Government entirely con- 

 siderate in regard to the United States to consult and 

 agree with France upon a question vital to the 

 United StaK-s. without affording them a bearing. 



'ver, the United States were then unable, as 

 they are yet unable, to perceive how it is justly con- 

 sidered by her Majesty's Government anymore law- 

 ful, just, or friendly to entertain traitors against the 

 United States, with a view to business negotiations 

 with them, unofficially and nrivately, than it is to 

 entertain and negotiate with them officially and 

 publicly. Be this as it may, Earl Russell's explana- 

 tions revealed to the United States the fact that even 

 thus early, before any effective military advantage 

 had been gained by the insurgents, and even before 

 any meditated blow had been given by this Govern- 

 ment in its own defence, the British Government, 

 Parliament, and people were entertaining privately, 

 and not unkindly, debates with the insurgents, and 

 with a foreign power, which involved nothing less 

 than a direct and speedy sanction of the rebellion in 

 the United States, and a dissolution of the American 

 Union. They are yet unwilling to believe that 

 Great Britain would take such a course with uncon- 

 cealed precipitancy. Mr. Adams, the new minister, 

 in the mean time, had been charged with the duty of 

 counteracting the appeals of the disuuionists, and 

 was prepared to answer every argument which they 

 could advance, either on the score of British in- 

 terest, or under the pretext of zeal for the freedom 

 of trade, or for the freedom of men. The insurgent 

 emissaries reached London on the 30th of April. 

 The President's blockade proclamation, which was 

 issued on the 13th of April, reached London on the 

 3d- of May. On the 4th of May, only two days after 

 the conference of Mr. Dallas with Lord Russell, he 

 favored the insurgent emissaries with an unofficial 

 interview. He patiently, it is not for us to say con- 

 fidingly, heard them disclaim slavery as a principal 

 cause of the incipient rebellion, while they alleged 

 that its real cause was the high prices which the^so- 

 called South was obliged to pay for manufactured 

 goods, by way of protecting so-called Northern 

 manufacturers. They favored him with glowing 

 statements of the South, and its exports valued Itv 

 millions. He answered that when the question of 

 recognition should come to be formally discussed, 

 inquiry must be made on two points first, whether 

 the ^ body seeking recognition could maintain its 

 position as an independent State; and, secondly, in 

 what manner it was proposed to maintain relations 



with foreign States. At iff tliin cnnrcnM 



ti'HI, it is to In- \Mn,di I'd :.t t!i il ! 



retiring from this interview, u*Mir-d I 



that they would n-st in L-mdnii in lie- hope that n 



recognition ml' tl :ut\ > <>i' t ; 



would iMt Inn;: In- delayed. Two 



lati-r, namely, on the 'Uh of May. tin- j. 

 retary for Foreign Allairs announced in Parliami-m 

 that tin- ministry had consulted the law ulli 

 tin- i nn\n the Attorney-General and the S 

 lleneral and the Queen's Advocate and l.-r 

 v's Government had come to the opinion that 

 the Southern Confederacy of America, according to 

 the principles which seemed to them to \>o just 

 principles, must be treated as belligerent. The 

 >'s proclamation, which went half way toward 

 the recognition of the so-called Southern Confed- 

 eracy, was issued at London on the l.'iih of May, in 

 the morning. Mr. Adams arrived there in the even- 

 ing. He was officially received on the lJth. This is 

 the history of the Queen's proclamation of neutrality. 

 What I wrote concerning it in the dispatch which 

 Lord Stanley has received is as follows : 



" While as yet the civil war was undeveloped, and 

 the insurgents were without any organized military 

 forces or treasury, long before they pretended to 

 have a flag, or to put an armed ship or even a mer- 

 chant-vessel upon the sea, her Majesty's Govern- 

 ment, acting precipitately, as we have always in- 

 sisted, proclaimed the insurgents a belligerent 

 power, and conceded to them the advantages and 

 privileges of that character, and thus raised them, in 

 regard to the prosecution of an unlawful armed in- 

 surrection, to an equality with the United States. 

 The United States remain of the opinion that the 

 proclamation has not been justified on any ground 

 of either necessity or moral right ; that, therefore, it 

 was an act of wrongful intervention, a departure 

 from the obligations of existing treaties, and without 

 sanction of the law of nations. 



[The defence which Lord Stanley rests upon the 

 decisions of our courts is again reviewed, and Mr. 

 Seward says :] 



" The recitals from the courts sustain the historical 

 view of the case which I have presented. Before 

 the Queen's proclamation of neutrality, the disturb- 

 ance in the United States was merely a local insur- 

 rection. It wanted the name of war to enable it to 

 be a civil war and to live, endowed as such with 

 maritime and other belligerent rights. Without 

 that authorized name it might die, and was ex- 

 pected not to live and be a flagrant civil war, bnt to 

 perish a mere insurrection. 



" It was, therefore, not without lawful and wise de- 

 sign, that the President declined to confer upon the 

 insurrection the pregnant baptismal name of civil 

 war, to the prejudice of the nation whose destiny 

 was in his hands. What the President thus wisely 

 and humanely declined to do, the Queen of Great 

 Britain too promptly performed. She baptized the 

 slave insurrection within the United States a civil 

 war; and thus, so far as the British nation and its 

 influence could go, gave it a name to live, and flourish, 

 and triumph over the American Union. By this 

 proceeding the Queen of Great Britain intervened in 

 the purely domestic and internal affairs of the United 

 States, and derogated from the authority of their 

 Government. Reference to the events of the time 

 will show that she misunderstood entirely the actual 

 situation." * * * * 



I pass, without comment, Lord Russell's justifica- 

 tion of the Queen's proclamation, by assimilating the 

 .situation here in IS'.l to that of the Greeks rising 

 against their Turkish oppressors in 1"-J">. It could 

 hardly be expected that this Government would be 

 convinced by an argument that assimilates them to 

 the Ottoman power in its decline, and the slare- 

 holding insurgents to the Christian descendants of 

 heroic Greece, in their reascent to civilization. Lord 

 Stanley thinks that the Queen's proclamation could 



