CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



kio<I except it be made op of an aggregate of 

 particulars. And so it EuppMad that in the 

 presentation of these claims li-ts .;. made 

 oat showing that A tind B and O ami 1 > had each 

 had hi* ship and his cargo destroyed, showing 

 that E and r and 6 and II had paid such and such 

 insurance policies, showing that such and such 

 expenses had been incurred in fitting out of 

 cruisers to pursue these Confederate ships that 

 had, through the aid of her Majesty's subjects, 

 been able to augment their destructive power 

 upon the high-seas. We presented these claims, 

 and then we came to the making of the treaty 

 under whi.'h this award has been made, and 

 which, of course, must be the guide in deter- 

 mining what oar rights are in respect to this 

 money. 



" The fraraers of the treaty of course were 

 not ignorant of this state of history ; and so 

 you will find that the treaty itself looks care- 

 fully, not to the right of any citizen whatever, 

 not" to the payment of any citizen whatever; 

 but it looks carefully and exclusively to the 

 injury that has been done to the nation in the 

 various respects and details which it has 

 pointed out as a cause for redress. The 

 eminent gentlemen ppon both sides who 

 framed this treaty were not ignorant of earlier 

 history. They were skilled diplomatists. 

 They "were familiar, as we must assume, with 

 the history of treaties in similar respects; 

 and being familiar with the history of those 

 treaties, as I shall show you, instead of follow- 

 ing the course that treaties have always fol- 

 lowed without exception, where it was in- 

 tended that the parties should agree to pay 

 any private persons any thing whatever, they 

 adopted an entirely different method of treat- 

 ing and an entirely different method in the 

 for the adjustment of these claims. 



" Now, as I have said, going over a dry de- 

 tail of history as to treaties, all these treaties 

 we mnst assume were perfectly fresh in the 

 minds of the high commission, as it was called, 

 that mnde this Treaty of Washington, in tho 

 year 1871. They therefore understood that 

 the unvarying course of historic precedent was 

 that, where reclamations were to be allowed 

 to citizens and not to nations, special and dis- 

 tinct provision was made for it in the treaty 

 iUclf. With that before their eyes what did 

 they do f Let us see. 



>u the 8th of May, 1871, they made this 

 treaty, which departed entirely from the pre- 

 cedents to which I have referred, where na- 

 tinni woro undertaking to deal for the interest 

 (if the. citizen, and were undertaking to make 

 reclamation and compensation to the citi/cn 

 for injurie that tho other nation hod com- 

 mitted, and net sail upon the brood sea of 

 purely international obligation : ami they did 

 it for tin- ohvionn reason that flows from what 

 I tt-d in the outset, that the injuries for 

 which Great Britain was bound to make, com- 

 pensation, if she WM bound to make it at all, 

 were injuries to which she was not * direct 



party, but an accessory only, and that the in- 

 juries themselves were belligerent injuries 

 committed law fully against our commerce and 

 our citizens under "the principles of public law 

 by a belligerent with whom we were at war. 

 And therefore, as they all understood, there 

 was no ground whatever upon which we could 

 assert in the name of any private citizen or 

 in behalf of any private citizen, or for any 

 private purpose whatever, any claim at all, 

 because the destruction of a ship upon the 

 high-seas by the Alabama, although (ireut 

 Britain had augmented her force, had laid her 

 keel, and supplied her guns, was, upon the 

 principles of public law and puhlic law of 

 course was the only law that could prevail be- 

 tween us and her Majesty's Government a 

 perfectly lawful procedure. In other words, 

 upon the principles of public law, the destruc- 

 tion of an American vessel by the Alabama 

 was a perfectly proper and lawful thing to do, 

 because war existed. I am now only looking 

 to tho public side of the question ; 1 am not 

 saying whether an individual Southerner may 

 or may not be tried for treason ; that is en- 

 tirely apart from this question. On the prin- 

 ciples of public law, whatever injury one 

 nation in a state of war or one belligerent, 

 whether a nation or not, one party recognized 

 by the nations of the earth as a belligerent, 

 may commit upon the other, is perfectly fair 

 play; and therefore the citizen, who as one 

 part of the nation suffers, stands, as I have said, 

 precisely as the soldier does who may suffer 

 more than his fellow-soldier, because he hap- 

 pens to be in the skirmish-line, or in the for- 

 lorn hope, while his fellow-soldier is holding 

 a position in the interior of the country. 



"So that, as I say, Mr. President, these 

 gentlemen, not unskilled in diplomacy, not ig- 

 norant of history, came to consider this ques- 

 tion, as it must be considered, as solely an in- 

 ternational question, in respect of which no 

 right, no injury of a citizen had any place 

 whatever, other 'than as the simple element 

 which, with others, went to make up the na- 

 tional question, as a part goes to make up the 

 whole. What did they do? They provided 

 in the first article thus : 



Whereas differences have arisen between the Gov- 

 ernment of thi! I'nited States nnd the Goven 

 of her Britannic Miycuty, and otill exist, (Trowing out 

 of the acts committed "by the scv. which 



have (riven rise to tho claims generally known as tho 

 Alabama claims. 



"You will observe the wide departure in 

 this language from that which had existed in 

 other and prior treaties with her M.i, 

 where it was the intention that the claim of 

 the citizen should bo recognized, and that in- 

 demnity should bo made to the citizen, and 

 the wide departure that was taken from nil 

 this prior history of treaties, where tho seizure 

 or the destruction committed J>y the party 

 who was to pay for it had been, not a l-lli- 

 gerent seizure or destruction, hut only the acci- 



