An inspection of the treaty shows how from beginning to end it is merely for the settlement of individual claims on both sides, putting the two batches on an equality, so that the sufferers by the misconduct of England may be counterbalanced by British blockade-runners. It opens with a preamble, which, instead of announcing the unprecedented question between the two countries, simply refers to individual claims that have arisen since 1853,—the last time of settlement,—some of which are still pending and remain unsettled. Who would believe that under these words of commonplace was concealed the unsettled difference which has already so deeply stirred the American people, and is destined, until finally adjusted, to occupy the attention of the civilized world? Nothing here gives notice of the real question. I quote the preamble, as it is the key-note to the treaty:—
“Whereas claims have at various times since the exchange of the ratifications of the convention between Great Britain and the United States of America, signed at London on the 8th of February, 1853, been made upon the Government of her Britannic Majesty on the part of citizens of the United States, and upon the Government of the United States on the part of subjects of her Britannic Majesty; and whereas some of such claims are still pending and remain unsettled; her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the President of the United States of America, being of opinion that a speedy and equitable settlement of all such claims will contribute much to the maintenance of the friendly feelings which subsist between the two countries, have resolved to make arrangements for that purpose by means of a convention.”[51]
The provisions of the treaty are for the trial of these cases. A commission is constituted, which is empowered to choose an arbitrator; but, in the event of a failure to agree, the arbitrator shall be determined “by lot” from two persons, one named by each side. Even if this aleatory proceeding were a proper device in the umpirage of private claims, it is strangely inconsistent with the solemnity which belongs to the present question. The moral sense is disturbed by such a process at any stage of the trial; nor is it satisfied by the subsequent provision for the selection of a sovereign or head of a friendly state as arbitrator.
The treaty not merely makes no provision for the determination of the great question, but it seems to provide expressly that it shall never hereafter be presented. A petty provision for individual claims, subject to a set-off by the individual claims of England, so that in the end our country may possibly receive nothing, is the consideration for this strange surrender. I borrow a term from an English statesman on another occasion, if I call it a “capitulation.”[52] For the settlement of a few individual claims, we condone the original far-reaching and destructive wrong. Here are the plain words by which this is done:—
“The high contracting parties engage to consider the result of the proceedings of this commission as a full and final settlement of every claim upon either Government arising out of any transaction of a date prior to the exchange of the ratifications of the present convention; and further engage that every such claim, whether or not the same may have been presented to the notice of, made, preferred, or laid before the said commission, shall, from and after the conclusion of the proceedings of the said commission, be considered and treated as finally settled and barred, and thenceforth inadmissible.”
All this I quote directly from the treaty. It is Article V. The national cause is handled as nothing more than a bundle of individual claims, and the result of the proceedings under the proposed treaty is to be “a full and final settlement,” so that hereafter all claims “shall be considered and treated as finally settled and barred, and thenceforth inadmissible.” Here is no provision for the real question, which, though thrust out of sight, or declared to be “finally settled and barred,” according to the terms of the treaty, must return to plague the two countries. Whatever the treaty may say in terms, there is no settlement in fact; and until this is made, there will be constant menace of discord. Nor can it be forgotten that there is no recognition of the rule of international duty applicable to such cases. This, too, is left unsettled.
While doing so little for us, the treaty makes ample provision for all known claims on the British side. As these are exclusively “individual,” they are completely covered by the text, which has no limitations or exceptions. Already it is announced in England that even those of “Confederate bondholders” are included. I have before me an English journal which describes the latter claims as founded on “immense quantities of cotton, worth at the time of their seizure nearly two shillings a pound, which were then in the legal possession of those bondholders”; and the same authority adds, “These claims will be brought, indifferently with others, before the designed joint commission, whenever it shall sit.” From another quarter I learn that these bondholders are “very sanguine of success under the treaty as it is worded, and certain it is that the loan went up from 0 to 10 as soon as it was ascertained that the treaty was signed.” I doubt if the American people are ready just now to provide for any such claims. That they have risen in the market is an argument against the treaty.
THE CASE AGAINST ENGLAND.
Passing from the treaty, I come now to consider briefly, but with proper precision, the true ground of complaint; and here again we shall see the constant inadequacy of the remedy now applied. It is with reluctance that I enter upon this statement, and I do it only in the discharge of a duty which cannot be postponed.