The British assumption, besides being offensive from mere technicality, is inconsistent with the Proclamation of the President, taken as a whole, which, while appointing a blockade, is careful to reserve the rights of sovereignty, thus putting foreign powers on their guard against any premature concession. After declaring an existing insurrection in certain States, and the obstruction of the laws for the collection of the revenue, as the motive for action, the President invokes not only the Law of Nations, but “the laws of the United States,” and, in further assertion of the national sovereignty, declares Rebel cruisers to be pirates.[56] Clearly the Proclamation must be taken as a whole, and its different provisions so interpreted as to harmonize with each other. If they cannot stand together, then it is the “blockade” which must be modified by the national sovereignty, and not the national sovereignty by the blockade. Such should have been the interpretation of a friendly power, especially when it is considered that there are numerous precedents of what the great German authority, Heffter, calls “Pacific Blockade,” or blockade without concession of ocean belligerency,—as in the case of France, England, and Russia against Turkey, 1827; France against Mexico, 1837-39; France and Great Britain against the Argentine Republic, 1838-48; Russia against the Circassians, 1831-36, illustrated by the seizure of the Vixen, so famous in diplomatic history.[57] Cases like these led Heffter to lay down the rule, that “blockade” does not necessarily constitute a state of regular war,[58] as was assumed by the British Proclamation, even in the face of positive words by President Lincoln asserting the national sovereignty and appealing to “the laws of the United States.” The existence of such cases was like a notice to the British Government against the concession so rashly made. It was an all-sufficient warning, which this power disregarded.
So far as is now known, the whole case for England is made to stand on the use of the word “Blockade” by President Lincoln. Had he used any other word, the concession of belligerency would have been without justification, even such as is now imagined. It was this word which, with magical might, opened the gates to all those bountiful supplies by which hostile expeditions were equipped against the United States: it opened the gates of war. Most appalling is it to think that one little word, unconsciously used by a trusting President, could be caught up by a friendly power and made to play such a part.
I may add that there is one other word often invoked for apology. It is “Neutrality,” which, it is said, was proclaimed between two belligerents. Nothing could be fairer, always provided that the “neutrality” proclaimed did not begin with a concession to one party without which this party would be powerless. Between two established Nations, both independent, as between Russia and France, there may be neutrality; for the two are already equal in rights, and the proclamation would be precisely equal in its operation. But where one party is an established Nation, and the other is nothing but an odious combination of Rebels, the proclamation is most unequal in operation; for it begins by a solemn investiture of Rebels with all the rights of war, saying to them, as was once said to the youthful knight, “Rise; here is a sword; use it.” To call such an investiture a proclamation of neutrality is a misnomer. It was a proclamation of equality between the National Government on the one side and Rebels on the other, and no plausible word can obscure this distinctive character.
Then came the building of the pirate ships, one after another. While the Alabama was still in the ship-yard, it became apparent that she was intended for the Rebels. Our Minister at London and our Consul at Liverpool exerted themselves for her arrest and detention. They were put off from day to day. On the 24th July, 1862, Mr. Adams “completed his evidence,” accompanied by an opinion from the eminent barrister, Mr. Collier, afterward Solicitor-General, declaring the plain duty of the British Government to stop her.[59] Instead of acting promptly by the telegraph, five days were allowed to run out, when at last, too tardily, the necessary order was dispatched. Meanwhile the pirate ship escaped from the port of Liverpool by a stratagem, and her voyage began with music and frolic. Here, beyond all question, was negligence, or, according to the language of Lord Brougham on another occasion, “crass negligence,” making England justly responsible for all that ensued.
The pirate ship found refuge in an obscure harbor of Wales, known as Moelfra Bay, where she lay in British waters from half-past seven o’clock, P. M., July 29th, to about three o’clock, A. M., July 31st, being upward of thirty-one hours, and during this time she was supplied with men from the British steam-tug Hercules, which followed her from Liverpool. These thirty-one hours were allowed to elapse without any attempt to stop her. Here was another stage of “crass negligence.”
Thus was there negligence in allowing the building to proceed, negligence in allowing the escape from Liverpool, and negligence in allowing the final escape from the British coast.
Lord Russell, while trying to vindicate his Government, and repelling the complaints of the United States, more than once admitted that the escape of the Alabama was “a scandal and a reproach,”[60] which to my mind is very like a confession. Language could not be stronger. Surely such an act cannot be blameless. If damages are ever awarded to a friendly power for injuries received, it is difficult to see where they could be more strenuously claimed than in a case which the First Minister of the offending power did not hesitate to characterize so strongly.
The enlistment of the crew was not less obnoxious to censure than the building of the ship and her escape. It was a part of the transaction. The evidence is explicit. Not to occupy too much time, I refer only to the deposition of William Passmore, who swears that he was engaged with the express understanding that “the vessel was going out to the Government of the Confederate States of America,” “to fight for the Southern Government”; that he joined her at Laird’s yard at Birkenhead, near Liverpool, remaining there several weeks; that there were about thirty men on board, most of them old man-of-war’s men, among whom it was “well known that the vessel was going out as a privateer for the Confederate Government, to act against the United States, under a commission from Mr. Jefferson Davis.”[61] In a list of the crew, now before me, there is a large number said to be from the “Royal Naval Reserve.”[62] I might add to this testimony. The more the case is examined, the more clearly do we discern the character of the transaction.
The dedication of the ship to the Rebel service, from the very laying of the keel and the organization of her voyage, with England as her naval base, from which she drew munitions of war and men, made her departure as much a hostile expedition as if she had sailed forth from her Majesty’s dock-yard. At a moment of profound peace between the United States and England there was a hostile expedition against the United States. It was in no just sense a commercial transaction, but an act of war.