242 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 



the obstacles that had seemed insuperable. In 

 1868, after Charles Francis Adams had been 

 succeeded as minister by Reverdy Johnson, a 

 general agreement on all the matters at issue 

 between the governments was slowly worked 

 out. The Irish trouble was first cleared away 

 by a protocol, eventually amplified into a 

 treaty, assuring to naturalized citizens of the 

 United States, though originally British sub 

 jects, the full rights in Great Britain of native- 

 born citizens of the United States, that is, 

 recognizing the right of expatriation for which 

 the American Government had long contended. 

 A second protocol referred to arbitration a 

 boundary dispute in the far northwest that 

 had been pending since the last years of Bu 

 chanan s administration. The third and last of 

 the agreements, the ill-fated Johnson-Clarendon 

 convention signed January 14, 1869, provided 

 for the Alabama claims. 



In this convention the controverted issues as 

 to belligerency and neutrality during the war 

 were hidden away in a series of general provi 

 sions for the settlement of all claims upon ei 

 ther government for money compensation to cit 

 izens of the other, on account of transactions 

 since 1853. A commission of four members, 



