See, further, as to the recognition of Confederate belligerency, S. Ex. Doc. 11, 41 Cong. 1 sess.; Phillimore, Int. Law, II. (3d ed.) 25; speech of Sir G. C. Lewis, Oct. 17, 1862, cited by Lawrence, Com. sur droit int., I. 200; Goldwin Smith, Macmillan's Mag. XIII. 168, C. F. Adams, Lee at Appomattox and other papers, 98-101, 199–203.

recognition.

June 2, 1865, Earl Russell instructed Sir Frederick Bruce, the British minister at Washington, to inform the GovWithdrawal of ernment of the United States that Her Majesty's Government, having received copies of the President's proclamation of May 10 declaring that armed resistance to the United States was virtually at an end, and having heard of the surrender or dispersal of most of the Confederate armies and the capture of Mr. Jefferson Davis, had, after communication with the French Government, determined, although it would have been more satisfactory if the United States had also declared that it renounced the exercise, as regarded neutrals, of the rights of a belligerent, to consider the war to have ceased de facto and peace to have been reestablished throughout the territory of the United States; and that Her Majesty's Government would immediately direct that admission to British waters be refused to Confederate vessels of war, while any such vessels already in those waters should, unless divested of their warlike character, be required to depart, with the benefit, for the last time, of the prohibition against their being pursued within twenty-four hours by a cruiser of the United States lying at the moment within the same port." Mr. Seward protested against this reservation, and, in communicating the correspondence to the Secretary of the Navy, advised that the naval officers of the United States be acquainted with "the results following therefrom, namely: First, Great Britain withdraws her cession heretofore made of a belligerent character from the insurgents; secondly, that the withdrawal of the twenty-four hours' rule has not been made absolute by Great Britain, and that therefore the customary courtesies are not to be paid by our vessels to those of the British navy; thirdly, the right of search of British vessels is terminated (of course this has no bearing upon the operation of the existing slave-trade treaty); fourthly, any insurgent or piratical vessels found on the high seas may be lawfully captured by vessels of the United States." Mr. Welles, June 22, 1865, issued instructions to the Navy to the effect that France had "withdrawn from the insurgents the character of belligerents" and removed all restrictions on naval intercourse; that Great Britain had taken similar action, but that, as her withdrawal of the twenty-four hours' rule was not absolute, "reciprocal measures" would be extended to her vessels; that

a Dip. Cor. 1865, I. 409.

Dip. Cor. 1865, I. 407-408.

© Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Welles, Sec. of the Navy, June 19, 1865, Dip. Cor. 1865, I. 410.

the blockade of the ports and coast of the United States would soon cease, and that with the cessation of hostilities the belligerent right of search would also cease. On June 23 the President issued a proclamation terminating the blockade. In a letter to the lords of the admiralty of October 13, 1865, Earl Russell, adverting to the reservation as to the twenty-four hours' rule, stated that all restrictive measures on United States men-of-war in British waters were to be considered as at an end. Mr. Welles was in consequence requested to inform the officers of the Navy that the instructions previously given them "to make discriminations in regard to their visits in British ports and their intercourse with British naval vessels" were countermanded and withdrawn.d

Spain, by a royal decree of June 4, 1865, annulled the royal decree of June 17, 1861, declaring her neutrality, and thus withdrew her concession of belligerent rights to the Confederacy.

1865.

of

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"This subject [of the recognition of belligerency] received a full Correspondence discussion in the correspondence between Mr. Adams Mr. Adams and and Earl Russell, beginning April 7 and ending SepEarl Russell, tember 18, 1865. The principal contest was whether the recognition by Great Britain of belligerent rights in the rebel States was unprecedented and precipitate,' as alleged by Mr. Adams. The rule Mr. Adams lays down is this: Whenever an insurrection against the established government of a country takes place, the duty of governments, under obligations to maintain peace and friendship with it, appears to be, at first, to abstain carefully from any step that may have the smallest influence in affecting the result. Whenever facts occur of which it is necessary to take notice, either because they involve a necessity of protecting personal interests at home or avoiding an implication in the struggle, then it appears to be just and right to provide for the emergency by specific measures, precisely to the extent that may be required, but no farther. It is, then, facts alone, and not appearances or presumptions, that justify action. But even these are not to be dealt with farther than the occasion demands; a rigid neutrality in whatever is done is of course understood. If, after the lapse of a reasonable period, there be little prospect of a termination of the struggle, especially if this be carried on upon the ocean, a recognition of the parties as belligerents appears to be justifiable; and at that time, so far as I can ascertain, such a step has never in fact been objected to.' He contends that the

a Dip. Cor. 1865, I. 414.

b Dip. Cor. 1865, I. 412. See also, as to the action of Great Britain, id. 433, 445, 453.

e Dip. Cor. 1865, I. 611.

d Dip. Cor. 1865, I. 627-628. Dip. Cor. 1865, II. 540.

recognition of belligerent rights in the American colonies, in their war of independence, by France and Holland, was not made generally and for all purposes, but only to meet existing facts, and not until the presence of American war vessels in their ports made a decision necessary; and that France and England alike seemed to consider that a recognition of belligerency was an unfriendly act, unless justified by necessity. He considers the belligerent rights of the South American provinces to have been recognized upon the same principles, and refers to late civil wars in Europe, involving states more or less maritime, where no such recognition had been made. He contends that the recognition in this instance created all the naval power the rebellion possessed, and was so influential upon its subsequent history that Great Britain and France are not entitled to the argument that the event justified their action. Earl Russell does not seem to differ from Mr. Adams on the general principles. He contends that the state of things upon which the Government was required to act had no exact parallel, and must be judged by itself. He protests that the overt and formal acts of the parties to the war are not alone to be considered; and, referring to the extent of the territory, population, and resources of the rebellion; the existence of its completely organized State and general governments; its unequivocal determination to treat as war, by sea and land, any acts of authority which the United States, on the other hand, had equally determined to exert; the long antecedent history and preparations for this revolution; and the certainty of the magnitude and extent of the war and its rapid development whenever it should begin, and that it would require the instant decision of maritime questions by neutral vessels of war and merchantmen alike, he argues that it was necessary for England to determine at once, upon facts and probabilities, whether she should permit the right of search and blockade as acts of war, and whether the letters of marque and public ships of the rebels, which might appear at once in many parts of the world, should be treated as pirates or as lawful belligerents. On this subject, see further Mr. Bemis's pamphlets on the Recognition of Belligerency, Boston, 1865; letter of Mr. Harcourt (Historicus'), London Times, March 22, 1865; Lord Lyons to Lord J. Russell, April 22, 1861; Mr. Bright's speech, March 13, 1865; Earl Russell's speech, March 23, 1865; proclamations of President Lincoln of 15th and 19th April, 1861, and of Jefferson Davis, 17th April, 1861, and of Queen Victoria, 13th May, 1861."

Note of Mr. Dana, Dana's Wheaton, § 23, note 15, pp. 37-38.

The correspondence referred to in Mr. Dana's note is as follows: Mr. Adams to Earl Russell, April 7, 1865, Dip. Cor. 1865, I. 316; Earl Russell to Mr. Adams, May 4, 1865, id. 356; Mr. Adams to Earl Russell, May 20, 1865, id. 375; Earl Russell to Mr. Adams, Aug. 30, 1865, id. 536; Mr. Adams to Earl Russell, Sept. 18, 1865, id. 554.

Mr. Dana fails to bring out in his summary of the correspondence Earl Russell's strenuous assertion of the position that President Lincoln's proclamation of blockade of April 19, 1861, was itself a recognition, and the first recognition, of the belligerency of the Confederate States. Denying in his note of May 4, 1865, that the Queen's proclamation of neutrality of May 13, 1861, was "precipitate," Earl Russell declared: "It was, on the contrary, your own Government which, in assuming the belligerent right of blockade, recognized the Southern States as belligerents. Had they not been belligerents the armed ships of the United States would have had no right to stop a single British ship upon the high seas.' Earl Russell maintains this position by an extended argument which he supplemented in his note of Aug. 30, 1865 (Dip. Cor. 1865, I. 538) with a long quotation from the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in the prize cases. "Insurrection against a government may or may not culminate in an organized rebellion, but a civil war always begins by Decisions of the insurrection against the lawful authority of the governSupreme Court. ment. A civil war is never solemnly declared; it becomes such by its accidents-the number, power, and organization of the persons who originate and carry it on. When the party in rebellion occupy and hold in a hostile manner a certain portion of territory; have declared their independence; have cast off their allegiance; have organized armies; have commenced hostilities against their former sovereign, the world acknowledges them as belligerents, and the contest a war. * * * If a war be made by invasion of a foreign nation, the President is not only authorized but bound to resist force by force. And whether the hostile party be a foreign invader, or States organized in rebellion, it is none the less a war, although the declaration of it be unilateral.' The law of nations contains no such anomalous doctrine as that which this court are now for the first time desired to pronounce, to wit: That insurgents who have risen in rebellion against their sovereign, expelled her courts, established a revolutionary government, organized armies, and commenced hostilities, are not enemies because they are traitors; and a war levied on the government by traitors, in order to dismember and destroy it, is not a war because it is an 'insurrection.' * The proclamation of blockade is itself official and conclusive evidence to the court that a state of war existed which demanded and authorized a recourse to such a measure under the circumstances peculiar to the case."

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*

Prize Cases (1862), 2 Black, 635.

6

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Four vessels were involved in these cases-the schooner Crenshaw, captured May 17, 1861; the British bark Hiawatha, captured May 20; the Mexican schooner Brilliante, captured June 23; the British brig Amy Warwick, captured July 10.

The President, April 19, 1861, proclaimed a blockade of the ports of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, "in pursuance of the laws of the United States, and of the law of nations in such case provided."

April 27 he proclaimed a blockade of the ports of Virginia and North Carolina. "It would seem, then, that if the British Government erred in thinking that the war began as early as Mr. Lincoln's proclamation in question, they erred in company with our Supreme Court. (See the 'Alabama question,' New Englander for July, 1869; Black's Reports, ii, 635 ff.; Dana on Wheaton, 374, 375; Lawrence's Wheaton (2d ed., supplem.), p. 13; and Pomeroy's Introd. to Constit. Law, §§ 447-453.)" (Woolsey, Int. Law, app. iii, note 19.)

In the Prize Cases it was "simply held, that when parties in rebellion had occupied and held in a hostile manner a portion of the territory of the country, declared their independence, cast off their allegiance, organized armies, and commenced hostilities against the Government of the United States, war existed; that the President was bound to recognize the fact, and meet it without waiting for the action of Congress; that it was for him to determine what degree of force the crisis demanded, and whether the hostile forces were of such magnitude as to require him to accord to them the character of belligerents; and that he had the right to institute a blockade of ports in their possession, which neutrals were bound to recognize. It was also held, that as the rebellious parties had formed a confederacy, and thus become an organized body, and the territory occupied by them was defined, and the President had conceded to this organization in its military character belligerent rights, all the territory must be regarded as enemy's territory, and its inhabitants as enemies, whose property on the high seas would be lawful subjects of capture. There is nothing in these doctrines which justified the Confederate States in claiming the status of foreign States during the war, or in treating the inhabitants of the loyal States as alien enemies."

Williams v. Bruffy (1877), 96 U. S. 176, 189.

"To the Confederate Government was conceded, in the interest of humanity, and to prevent the cruelties of reprisals and retaliation, such belligerent rights as belonged, under the law of nations, to the armies. of independent Governments engaged in war against each other. The Confederate States were belligerents in the sense attached to that word by the law of nations."

Harlan, J., Ford v. Surget, 97 U. S. 594.

"It has been held by this court in repeated instances that, though the late war was not between independent nations, yet, as it was between the people of different sections of the country, and the insurgents were so thoroughly organized and formidable as to necessitate their recognition as belligerents, the usual incidents of a war between independent nations ensued. The rules of war, as recognized by the public law of civilized nations, became applicable to the contending forces. Their adoption was seen in the exchange of prisoners, the release of officers on parole, the recognition of flags of truce, and