[Footnote 70: Taylor's "Four year with General Lee.">[
[Footnote 71: "Report of Committee on the Conduct of the War," Part I, p. 656.]
[Footnote 72: Taylor's "Four Years with General Lee.">[
[Footnote 73: Swinton's "Army of the Potomac," p. 269.]
[Footnote 74: "Four Years with General Lee.">[
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Relations with Foreign Nations.—The Public Questions.—Ministers abroad.—Usages of Intercourse between Nations.—Our Action.— Mistake of European Nations; they follow the Example of England and France.—Different Conditions of the Belligerents.—Injury to the Confederacy with a Single Exception.—These Agreements remained inoperative.—Extent of the Pretended Blockade.—Remonstrances against its Recognition.—Sinking Vessels to block up Harbors.— Every Proscription of Maritime Law violated by the United States Government.—Protest.—Addition made to the Law by Great Britain.— Policy pursued favorable to our Enemies.—Instances.—Mediation proposed by France to Great Britain, and Russian Letter of French Minister.—Reply of Great Britain.—Reply of Russia.—Letter to French Minister at Washington.—Various Offensive Actions of the British Government.—Encouraging to the United States.—Hollow Profession of Neutrality.
The public questions arising out of our foreign relations were too important to be overlooked. At the end of the first year of the war the Confederate States had been recognized by the leading governments of Europe as a belligerent power. This continued unchanged to the close. Mr. Mason became our representative in London, Mr. Slidell in Paris, Mr. Rost in Spain, and Mr. Mann in Belgium. They performed with energy and skill the positions, but were unsuccessful in obtaining our recognition as an independent power.
The usages of intercourse between nations require that official communication be made to friendly powers of all organic changes in the constitution of states. To those who are familiar with the principles upon which the States known as the United States were originally constituted, as well as those upon which the Union was formed, the organic changes made by the secession and confederation of the Southern States are very apparent. But to others an explanation may be necessary. Each of the States was originally declared to be sovereign and independent. In this condition, at a former period, all of those then existing were severally recognized by name by the only one of the powers which had denied their right to independence. This gave to each a recognized national sovereignty. Subsequently they formed a compact of voluntary union, whereby a new organization was constituted, which was made the representative of the individual States in all general intercourse with other nations. So long as the compact continued in force, this agent represented merely the sovereignty of the States. But, when a portion of the States withdrew from the compact and formed a new one under the name of the Confederate States, they had made such organic changes in their Constitution as to require official notice in compliance with the usages of nations.
For this purpose the Provisional Government took early measures for sending to Europe Commissioners charged with the duty of visiting the capitals of the different powers and making arrangements for the opening of more formal diplomatic intercourse. Prior, however, to the arrival abroad of these Commissioners, the Government of the United States had addressed communications to the different Cabinets of Europe, in which it assumed the attitude of being sovereign over the Confederate States, and alleged that these independent States were in rebellion against the remaining States of the Union, and threatened Europe with manifestations of its displeasure if it should treat the Confederate States as having an independent existence. It soon became known that these pretensions were not considered abroad to be as absurd as they were known to be at home; nor had Europe yet learned what reliance was to be placed in the official statements of the Cabinet at Washington. The delegation of power granted by the States to the General Government to represent them in foreign intercourse had led European nations into the grave error of supposing that their separate sovereignty and independence had been merged into one common sovereignty, and had ceased to have a distinct existence. Under the influence of this error, which all appeals to reason and historical fact were vainly used to dispel, our Commissioners were met by the declaration that foreign Governments could not assume to judge between the conflicting representations of the two parties as to the true nature of their previous relations. The Governments of Great Britain and France accordingly signified their determination to confine themselves to recognizing the self-evident fact of the existence of a war, and to maintain a strict neutrality during its progress. Some of the other powers of Europe pursued the same course of policy, and it became apparent that by some understanding, express or tacit, Europe had decided to leave the initiative in all action touching the contest on this continent to the two powers just named, who were recognized to have the largest interests involved, both by reason of proximity to and of the extent of intimacy of their commercial relations with the States engaged in war.