The acquisition of Russian America for the sum of $7,200,000 was a splendid stroke of statesmanship, and secured to the United States the control of the North Pacific coast of the continent, besides adding about 581,107 square miles to the territory of the Republic. Alaska has immense resources, and is already looking forward to a proud and prosperous future as the north star in the flag of our Union.
When the British Government proposed, in 1871, a joint commission to settle the Canadian fisheries dispute, Secretary of State Hamilton Fish replied that the settlement of the claims for depredations by Anglo-Confederate cruisers would be "essential to the restoration of cordial and amicable relations between the two governments." In the following February five high commissioners from each country met in Washington, and a treaty was agreed upon providing for arbitration upon the issues between the American Republic and Great Britain. These issues included the "Alabama Claims"—so-called because the Alabama was the most notorious and destructive of the Anglo-Confederate sea rovers—the question of the Northwest boundary, and the Canadian fisheries.
The Tribunal of Arbitration upon the "Alabama Claims" met at Geneva, Switzerland, December 15, 1871. Charles Francis Adams, American Minister to England during the war, was member of the Tribunal for the United States, and Lord Chief Justice Cockburn acted for Great Britain. Baron Itajuba, Brazilian Minister to France; Count Sclopis, an Italian statesman, and M. Jaques Stæmpfii, of Switzerland, were the other members of the illustrious and memorable court. Caleb Cushing, William M. Evarts and Morrison R. Waite, counsel for the United States, presented an indictment against England which should have made British statesmen shrink from the evidence of their unsuccessful conspiracy against the life of a friendly State. The course of Great Britain during the war was reviewed in language not less forcible and convincing because it was calm, dignified and restrained. A fortress of facts was presented impregnable to British reply, and highly creditable to the forethought and skill with which the American State Department had gathered the material for its case from the very beginning of the war. So strong and unanswerable was the proof against the Alabama that the British arbitrator voted in favor of the United States on the issue of British responsibility for that vessel.
The Tribunal awarded $15,500,000 in gold for the vessels and cargoes destroyed by the Alabama, with her tender; the Florida, with her three tenders, and the Shenandoah, or Sea King, during a part of her piratical career. England promptly paid the award, and learned for the third time in her history that the rights and interests of the American people were not to be trampled on with impunity. The United States, in fulfilment of an award made by a commission appointed under the Treaty of Washington paid $2,000,000 for damages incurred by British subjects during the war for the Union, the claims presented to the commission having amounted to $96,000,000. The differences between the United States and Great Britain on account of the rebellion were thus happily removed without the shedding of a drop of blood, and the two great nations of English origin gave to mankind an admirable example of peaceful arbitration as a substitute for the ordeal of battle.
The question of the Northwest boundary was also settled to the satisfaction of the United States, by the German emperor, William I., to whom it was referred as arbitrator. The treaty of 1846 left in doubt whether the boundary line included the island of San Juan and its group within American or British territory. American and British garrisons occupied the disputed island of San Juan. When the Emperor William decided in favor of the United States the British troops were withdrawn.
Less advantageous to the United States was the attempt made to settle the long dispute over the fisheries. The Treaty of Washington provided that American fishermen should be freely admitted to the Canadian fisheries, and that Canadians should be permitted to fish on the American coast as far south as the thirty-ninth parallel, and that there should be free trade in fish-oil and salt water fish, these provisions to be abrogated on two years' notice. Through a most unfortunate blunder on the part of our government a commission was constituted virtually British in its character, which awarded to Great Britain the sum of $5,500,000 for imaginary American benefits to be derived from reciprocity. This money was paid without any real equivalent.
The reciprocity arrangement was abrogated, under notice from our government, in 1885, and the old contention was renewed. As a result of Canadian outrage and intolerance a bill was passed by the American Congress, March 3, 1887, providing that the President, on being satisfied that American fishing masters or crews were treated in Canadian ports any less favorably than masters or crews of trading vessels belonging to the most favored nations could "in his discretion by proclamation to that effect deny vessels, their masters and crews, of the British dominions of North America, any entrance into the waters, ports or places of or within the United States." Eventually the Canadians assumed a more reasonable attitude, and American fishermen, on their part, learned to be independent of Canada, and to value the exclusive possession of their own markets more than Canadian fishing privileges.