CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



211 



on the ground that the claims of private citi- 

 zens were recognized, but that the whole of 

 his objections to the convention were because 

 it did not recognize the claims of the United 

 .States over and above the claims of individual 

 citizens, and combined no reparation for the 

 wounded national honor and the dignity of 

 this Government. 



" That treaty was defeated ; why defeated it 

 is immaterial to say. Then came the treaty 

 which is now under consideration ; and the 

 first article of that treaty being one upon 

 which the Senator from Vermont has based a 

 large part of his argument, I beg leave to call 

 attention to it particularly. He says that this 

 treaty is not like any other that ever was made 

 upon the subject of claims due to citizens of 

 the United States, and he bases a great deal 

 of his argument upon the fact that in the 

 treaties from which he has read there was a 

 specific reference to the claims of citizens of 

 the United States. Why, sir, the answer to 

 that is in a word. It is because in the cases 

 to which the articles of the treaties that he 

 read referred, there was no question of na- 

 tional claims, there was nothing but the claim 

 of the citizen, and that is the reason why 

 nothing but the claim of the citizen is men- 

 tioned. Take the first case he read; the case 

 of the treaty with Great Britain of 1794. 

 That was a case which provided for paying 

 certain amounts to subjects of Great Britain. 

 What was the ground upon which they were 

 to be paid ? They were debts that had been 

 due by citizens of the colonies to subjects of 

 Great Britain, debts that had been due by one 

 subject of Great Britain to another subject of 

 Great Britain, but owing to the war the col- 

 lection had been suspended, if the debts had 

 not become absolutely void. Those subjects 

 of Great Britain had no claim whatever upon 

 the Government of the United States for the 

 payment of those debts. Why, then, were 

 they paid? It was simply an equivalent or 

 one of the equivalents that the United States 

 gave for the equivalent that she received by 

 that treaty. It never was put upon the ground 

 that those citizens had any claim upon the 

 Government of the United States. It was 

 simply one of the equivalents which we paid 

 by that treaty for the equivalents which we 

 received. So that that treaty has nothing to 

 do with a case like this. 



" Then take the treaty with France in which 

 provision is made for paying citizens of the 

 United States. What is the reason that noth- 

 ing but private claims is mentioned in that 

 treaty ? Because in that committee we pro- 

 vided for nothing but private claims. We did 

 not ask France to give us any thing to repair 

 our wonnded honor, or to pay us for any ex- 

 pense we had been at, or any national injury 

 we had received. And so with every one of 

 the rest of these treaties. Take the treaty 

 with Spain. We were not there demanding 

 money of Spain as a talvo to our national 



honor or to indemnify us for national loss, bnt 

 we were asking her that our citizens should 

 be paid; and, that being the case, of course 

 the treaty spoke of nothing else. The same is 

 the case with the Algerian treaty, and in fact 

 with every one of the treaties that have been 

 mentioned. They are cases in which what- 

 ever may be in other articles of the treaty, in 

 the article of the treaty that related to claims 

 we made no claims but those of private citi- 

 zens, and therefore we might well speak of 

 their being the claims of citizens of the United 

 States. 



" But how was it when we made this treaty 

 of Washington with Great Britain? You have 

 seen that the Johnson-Clarendon treaty was 

 defeated because it related to nothing but 

 claims of citizens. Our Government, there- 

 fore, was determined that the treaty which 

 should be formed here at Washington, if one 

 should be made at all, should include some- 

 thing besides the claims of private citizens ; and 

 that is the reason why the language is not the 

 same as it was in the old treaty. It is because 

 we had determined to demand more tbnn would 

 repay our citizens for the losses they had sus- 

 tained. Hence the language which is used in 

 the first article of the treaty. But the con- 

 tracting parties did not agree, perhaps they 

 never could have agreed precisely, as to what 

 the public claims should be ; and therefore 

 they resorted to a general term as to what 

 they should be ; and they said : 



WJiereat, Differences have arisen between the 

 Government of the United States and the Govern- 

 ment of her Britannic Majesty, and still exist, grow- 

 ing out of the acts committed by the several vessels 

 winch have given rise to the claims gencrically 

 known as the " Alabama claims : " 



And whereas her Britannic Majesty has authorized 

 her high commissioners and plenipotentiaries to ex- 

 press in a friendly spirit, the regret felt by her 

 Majesty's Government for the escape, under what- 

 ever circumstances, of the Alabama and other ves- 

 sels from British ports, and for the depredations 

 committed by those vessels. 



" That expression of regret was to cure our 

 wonnded honor. Then comes something more 

 operative and practical : 



Now, in order to remove and adjust all complaints 

 and claims on the part of the United States, and to 

 provide for the speedv settlement of such claims, 

 which are not admitted by her Britannic Majesty's 

 Government, the high contracting? parties agree that 

 all the said claims growing out of acts committed by 

 the aforesaid vessels, and generically known as the 

 " Alabama claims/' shall be referred to a tribunal of 

 arbitration to be composed of five arbitrators. 



"That is the reason why it is not said here, 

 'the claims of the citizens of the United 

 States.' It is because we had public claims 

 that we intended to assert . under that general 

 phraseology, ' the claims generically known as 

 the Alabama claims.' It is because we did not 

 intend to limit ourselves to the presentation of 

 private claims that we did not make the lan- 

 guage of this treaty as is that -of the treaties 

 that have been read from, simply a claim for 

 the damages due to private citizens, individ- 



