THE GENEVA AWARD.

PAPER BY

WM. M. HOWARD,

OF AUGUSTA.

In the annals of English and American diplomacy the "Alabama Claims," the "Geneva Award" and the "Treaty of Washington" are specific phases of one general subject, "The Duties of Neutral States." The historical interest of the subject outweighs any intrinsic importance of the Award, by the greater weight of the human factors involved rather than from any precedent of international law invoked or established by the decision rendered.

In February, 1861, the Confederacy was established with Mr. Jefferson Davis as its President. In March following, Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated President of the United States. The Confederacy was without a navy, or the materials with which to construct and equip one. Its convertible wealth consisted of cotton, and this was practically valueless unless it could be gotten to the European consumer, and in exchange for it, such war material brought in as the Confederacy could not produce and must purchase abroad. The freedom and safety of the seas, therefore, became a necessity of immediate importance to the newly-created government.

President Davis issued a proclamation that the Confederacy would commission privateers. President Lincoln replied that he would treat privateering as piracy, and the penalty for piracy was death. Immediately President Lincoln proclaimed the blockade of the Southern ports and this, in effect, was shutting off the air from the lungs.

Privateering had been the settled policy of the United States. Thomas Jefferson had written to President Madison

a most elaborate defense of its use against England in the War of 1812, in which he argued that it was the only resource for any country having a large commerce upon the seas and a navy relatively small to that of its belligerent enemy. It was the practice of England and of the European maritime countries until the outbreak of the Crimean War when France and England proclaimed that they would not commission privateers. At the conclusion of that war in the treaty of Paris of 1856 the first declaration was a renunciation of privateering by France, Russia and England, with an invitation to all other naval powers to adopt the policy by becoming adherents to that treaty. The proposal was consequently made to the United States to become a party signatory. The invitation was declined and thus the question of privateering stood at the outbreak of the Civil War.

In the Federal Congress that assembled in 1861 a Bill was introduced authorizing President Lincoln to issue Letters of Marque. It was "defeated upon the ground that according to the accepted doctrines of international law privateering could not be authorized except against an enemy, one having belligerent rights, and the effect of such a law, therefore, would be to recognize the Confederacy as an independent government and power and therefore possessed of belligerent rights."

A concession which would destroy the theory of the war from the Union side, that the seceding States were in rebellion and were, therefore, without belligerent rights and because without belligerent rights privateers commissioned by the Confederacy would not have, and could not be recognized as having, the attributes of a belligerent, and consequently, were pirates and should be treated as such. This announced attitude of the Federal Government necessarily destroyed the Confederacy's prospect for any considerable accession of privateers; thus it will be seen that the pressure upon the Confederacy for an outlet to England, and the Continent, became the paramount question at the very threshold of hostilities and it was clearly indicated to the mind of President

Davis that he must have, if possible, and at the earliest moment, the recognition by England and France, at least, of the belligerency of the Confederacy, if not the formal recognition by these States of the independent and established character of the Confederacy as an independent sovereign government. It must be equally clear that it was no less a paramount desire of Mr. Lincoln to prevent Great Britain and France from according belligerent rights to the Confederacy if it lay in his power.

If England and France should accord the rights of a belligerent to the Confederacy, then under international law they would owe equal duties to the Federal Government and to the Confederacy.

It transpired early after the outbreak of hostilities that France agreed to act with England in all matters respecting the Federal and Confederate Governments and to follow England's lead.

It becomes interesting, therefore, to look to the personnel of the three Governments by whom this momentous game of diplomacy was to be played.

THE DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

THE NORTH.

Mr. Lincoln appointed as his Secretary of State, Wm. H. Seward, who had formerly been Governor of New York, and afterwards a United States Senator and the leading competitor for the Republican Nomination for the Presidency before the convention which nominated Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Seward was a man of great intellectual power, with large experience from the important affairs of the greatest State in the Union, and having a wide acquaintance with the public men of the east, he possessed the confidence of the Abolitionists of the east, while Mr. Lincoln did not. He was eloquent in speech, popular in manners and resourceful in action, but of questionable intellectual integrity. He was the very opposite of Mr. Lincoln at every cardinal point of contrast. Mr. Lincoln entered the presidency with the trust and confidence

of the west, and the distrust, if not contempt, of the east. He was a man of subtle intellect, a moody manner, tenacious of his convictions, patient and persevering in the accomplishment of his ends.

Mr. Seward, in these circumstances, naturally expected to be the premier in the administration, and his friends expected, from their knowledge of him, and their lack of knowledge of Mr. Lincoln, that Mr. Seward would be the real power in Washington.

Charles Sumner, then a Senator from Massachusetts, and Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, a position, to one capable of exercising it, and Mr. Sumner was, second only to the influence of the President. Mr. Sumner's biographer says of him, and his fame justifies the observation, that "There was no man in public life whose career had been so long, so distinguished, so consistent, or to so great an extent lead the conscience of the country." He was the idol of the Abolitionists of the east, a man of magnificent presence, talented, cultured, eloquent and traveled, imperious in bearing and in speech.

He had spent much time in England, and counted many friends among the nobility of that country. Cobden and Bright were his friends and advised him constantly of the state of opinion in England with respect to the question of slavery before the war, and of British public opinion with regard to the war while it was in progress.

His sources of information of British public opinion ranged from the Duke of Argyle and his accomplished wife, to Cobden and to Bright, all of whom were pronounced friends of the North in the conflict.

Charles Francis Adams, born at St. Petersburg, while his father, John Quincy Adams, was Minister to Russia, and then in the full maturity of his powers, possessing many of the rare gifts of that illustrious family of patriots, including the inestimable family trait of keeping a diary, was at the urgent insistence of Mr. Seward, appointed Minister to England, and it was into his skilled and persistent hands that the task

was placed of checkmating the plans of the Confederacy at the Court of St. James. He served at that court throughout the Civil War and beyond with marked fidelity, prudence and sagacity, and ended his distinguished career as the arbitrator for his Government in the Geneva Tribunal under the treaty of Washington.

Thus Lincoln, Seward, Adams and Sumner comprised the chief actors for the United States in the greatest international event of the Civil War.

THE SOUTH.

At the outbreak of war, the Confederacy had no international status, hence had neither ministers nor ambassadors. Under the provisions of the Confederate Constitution, the power was placed in the President to determine the necessity and scope of any diplomatic function.

In the exercise of this power, on the 18th day of February, before President Davis had made a single civil appointment, he sent for Wm. L. Yancey, of Alabama, to come to Montgomery, and appointed him and P. A. Rost, of Louisiana, his Commissioners to England to obtain the recognition by the British Government of the Confederacy. It is superfluous to dwell upon those qualities of the man and of his services, which distinguished Mr. Yancey as the Mirabeau of the Confederacy and which pointed him out to the President as the fittest for that delicate and important mission.

Later there were added to this first commission, John Slidell, of Louisiana, and Wm. Mason, of Virginia. The world knows the story of taking Slidell and Mason from the British steamship Trent by Captain Wilkes, of the United States steamship San Jacinto.

Messrs. Yancey and Rost set out for England at once and were in London and had obtained an interview at the foreign office on the subject of their mission before the news of the fall of Ft. Sumter had reached the British Cabinet. President Davis, Yancey, Mason and Slidell comprised the contesting force for the favor of England in the mighty struggle.