As soon as the vote was announced in the Senate, Mr. Sumner hastened to Mr. Seward at the State Department. It was five o’clock in the afternoon, and the Secretary was reposing on a sofa. On hearing the words, “The treaty is ratified unanimously,” he exclaimed, “Where —— were the Democrats?” His joy was great, and Lord Lyons, on learning the result, was not less happy. It is much in a diplomatic career to sign any treaty, but it was an event to have signed a treaty promising the final extinction of an infinite scandal and curse to humanity.
Subsequent action was prompt. The treaty was ratified by the Senate April 24th; ratifications were exchanged in London May 25th; the treaty was proclaimed by the President June 7th, 1862.
June 10th, a message of the President, transmitting a copy of the treaty, with correspondence between Mr. Seward and Lord Lyons in relation to it, was laid before the Senate, and on motion of Mr. Sumner referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, and ordered to be printed.
June 13th, Mr. Sumner reported from the Committee a bill to carry the treaty into effect, providing for the appointment, with the advice and consent of the Senate, of a judge and also an arbitrator on the part of the United States to reside at New York, a judge and also an arbitrator to reside at Sierra Leone, and a judge and also an arbitrator to reside at the Cape of Good Hope,—all the judges to be paid $2,500 annually, the arbitrator at New York $1,000, and the arbitrators at Sierra Leone and the Cape of Good Hope $2,000 respectively.
Owing to the pressure of business incident to the latter days of a very crowded session, Mr. Sumner was not able to call it up immediately. June 26th, on his motion, it was considered and passed: Yeas, 34; Nays, only 4.
Among the nays was Mr. Saulsbury, of Delaware, who remarked:—
“I do not object to the suppression of the African slave-trade, but I do not believe that this Government has the constitutional right to establish any such court. I think the treaty ought not to have been adopted.”
July 7th the bill passed the House, and July 11th was approved by the President.
The importance of this treaty had not been exaggerated. The Journal des Débats, organ of French intelligence at Paris, in its enunciation, June 15, 1862, of the objects accomplished by the National Government, says: “There is a treaty with England, which, loyally executed, must soon render the slave-trade almost impossible.”