2IO UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



The first formal step that Secretary Seward took in using the Fenian 

 Brotherhood as a means of making Great Britain come to terms upon 

 the Alabama and other questions, later settled in the Treaty of Wash- 

 ington, was on March 20, 1865. The British government had sent a 

 note to Seward denouncing our attitude toward the Fenian conspiracy 

 and requesting particularly that the United States should no longer 

 allow her officials and, as well, the officials of the states to attend meetings 

 of the Brotherhood. Seward on the above date, replied to the note. 1 

 He gave the reasons why the United States could not interfere with 

 the Brotherhood and declared that there had not yet arisen a case that 

 offered sufficient reasons for interfering with their meetings. "I may 

 properly add," he sagaciously continued, "that this government has 

 no sufficient grounds to apprehend that any such case will occur unless 

 renewed and systematic aggressions from the British ports and provinces 

 should defeat all the efforts of this government to maintain and preserve 

 peace with Great Britain." 



On June 11, 1866, five days after President Johnson's warning 

 proclamation, the House referred 2 to the proper committee a proposition 

 for the repeal of our neutrality laws for the avowed purpose 3 of letting 

 the Fenians get at the Canadians and the British Empire generally. 

 On July 23 the House passed a resolution 4 requesting the Committee 

 on Foreign Affairs to inquire into the expediency of reporting a bill 

 applying the same regulations toward belligerents that the government 

 of Great Britain had applied to the late Confederacy. The bill was 

 reported and passed with entire unanimity. The Senate did not concur 

 and so the bill was lost. Yet the action of the House gave great impetus 

 to the preparations the Fenians were then making for sending money, 

 men and arms to Ireland. President Johnson's annual message 5 

 (December, 1866) spoke of the Fenian organization as one "purely 

 political" in its nature and gave no hint that measures would be taken 

 to prevent its members from breaking our neutrality laws again or to 

 prevent their giving such aid to Ireland as they chose. 



1 Diplomatic Correspondence, 1865, Vol. II, p. 103. 



2 House Journal, 1st sess., 39th Cong. 



3 The Nation, June 15, 1866, p. 760. 



* House Journal, 1st sess., 39th Cong., p. 1091. 



s Richardson, Messages oj the Presidents, Vol. VI, p. 458. 



