of possession, he departs from his neutrality, and so violates the duty he owes to both the belligerents as well as to the laws of his own country."

Mr. Cass, Sec. of State, to Mr. Clay, minister to Peru, Nov. 26, 1858, MS. Inst.
Peru, XV. 243.

See, also, Br. & For. State Papers (1859-1860), L. 1126; id. (1860, 1861), LI.

Miramon

Blockade.

7. MEXICO.
§ 65.

"I have the honor to inform you that both Mr. McLane, our minister to Mexico, and Mr. Mata, the Mexican minister here, Govern- have stated to this Department that there is reason to ment; Question of believe that arrangements are making by what is known as the Miramon government of Mexico to establish a blockade of Vera Cruz and other ports upon the Gulf of Mexico. The President has decided that no such blockade will be recognized by the United States, and I have to request that the necessary orders for the protection of American commerce in the Gulf against any such attempt may be given to the proper naval officers."

Mr. Cass, Sec. of State, to Mr. Toucey, Sec. of the Navy, March 10, 1860, 52
MS. Dom. Let. 37.

Governments of Juarez and Maximilian.

"This Government has long recognized, and still does continue to recognize, the constitutional government of the United States of Mexico as the sovereign authority in that country, and the President, Benito Juarez, as its chief. This Government, at the same time, equally recognizes the condition of war existing in Mexico between that country and France. We maintain absolute neutrality between the belligerents, and we do not assume to judge, much less to judge in advance, of the effect of the war upon titles or estates."

Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Geofroy, French minister, April 6, 1864, Dip.
Cor. 1864, III. 212.

8. THE CONFEDERATE STATES.
§ 66.

Mr. Seward, in his instructions to Mr. Adams, of May 21, 1861, Action of Various stated that "a concession of belligerent rights" by Powers; Position Great Britain to the Confederate States would "be liaof Mr. Seward. ble to be construed" as a recognition of their independence, and would not "pass unquestioned by the United States."a Subsequently, having heard of the Queen's proclamation of neutrality

a Dip. Cor. 1861, 89. A facsimile of Mr. Seward's draft of these instructions, with President Lincoln's interlineations and corrections, is given in an article entitled “A famous diplomatic dispatch," in the North American Review, April, 1886.

of the 13th of May, Mr. Seward observed that its issuance was "remarkable" first, because it was made on the very day of Mr. Adams' arrival in London, without according him the reception and interview for which his predecessor had arranged, and, secondly, because of “ 'the tenor of the proclamation itself, which seems to recognize, in a vague manner, indeed, but does seem to recognize, the insurgents as a belligerent national power." In an instruction to Mr. Dayton, minister to France, of May 30, 1861, Mr. Seward said: "The United States can not for a moment allow the French Government to rest under the delusive belief that they will be content to have the Confederate States recognized as a belligerent power by states with which this nation is in amity." The French declaration of neutrality was issued June 10, 1861, that of Spain June 17, and that of the Netherlands in the same month. The Emperor of Brazil issued a similar declaration August 1, 1861. Declarations, decrees, or notifications were issued by other maritime powers. In a conversation with Earl Russell, June 12, 1861, Mr. Adams, referring to the British recognition of Confederate belligerency, observed that, "at any rate, there was one compensation, the act had released the Government of the United States from responsibility for any misdeeds of the rebels towards Great Britain. If any of their people should capture or maltreat a British vessel on the ocean, the reclamation must be made only upon those who had authorized the wrong. The United States would not be liable." In April, 1862, Mr. Adams and Mr. Dayton were respectively authorized, in their discretion, to submit to the British and French Governments certain representations looking to the revocation or "revision" of their recognition of Confederate belligerency."

"This Government insists now in these cases, as it insisted in the beginning of our domestic strife, that the decisions of the Emperor's

a Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Adams, minister to England, June 3, 1861, Dip. Cor. 1861, 97.

b Dip. Cor. 1861, 215. See also Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton, June 17, June 22, and July 6, 1861, id. 224, 229, 231–234.

c Moore, Int. Arbitrations, I. 595.

d Mr. Adams, minister to England, to Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, Dip. Cor. 1861, 87, 89; Lawrence's Wheaton (1863), 44. "It is easy to see what they [the United States] gained [by the acknowledgment of Confederate belligerency]. They gained the liberty to exercise against British ships on the high seas the rights of visit and search, of capturing contraband, and of blockade-rights which spring solely from the relation of belligerent and neutral, and which the neutral acknowledges by recognizing the existence of that relation. The advantages reaped in maritime war from the exercise of such rights fall, where there is a disparity of force, into the hands of the stronger belligerent; where the disparity is great he has a monopoly of them, for he is able to shut up his enemy in port and drive him from the sea. (Bernard's Neutrality of Gr. Brit. 167.)

Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Adams, minister to England, April 16, 1862, Dip. Cor. 1862, 73; Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Dayton, minister to France, April 17, 1862, Dip. Cor. 1862, 333.

Government, like those of other maritime powers, by which the insurgents of this country, without a port or a ship or a court of admiralty, are recognized by France as a naval belligerent, are in derogation of the law of nations and injurious to the dignity and sovereignty of the United States; that they have never approved or acquiesced in those decrees, and that they regard these late proceedings in relation to the Florida and Georgia, like those of a similar character which have occurred in previous cases, as just subjects of complaint. The same views are entertained so far as they apply to the new maritime regulations. We claim that we are entitled to have our national vessels received in French ports with the same courtesy that we ourselves extend to French ships of war, and that all real or pretended insurgent vessels ought to be altogether excluded from French ports. We expect the time to come, and we believe it is not distant, when this claim will be acknowledged by France to be both reasonable and just."

Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Dayton, minister to France, March 21, 1864,
Dip. Cor. 1864, IIF. 55.

"It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge that, beyond what we deem the
original error of France in recognizing, unnecessarily, as we think, the
insurgents as a belligerent, we have every reason to appreciate the just
and impartial observance of neutrality which has been practiced in the
ports and harbors of France by the Government of the Emperor. In any
case it will be hereafter, as it has been hitherto, a pleasing duty to con-
duct all our belligerent proceedings so as to inflict no wrong or injury
upon the Government or the people of the French Empire." (Mr. Sew-
ard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Dayton, minister to France, April 24, 1863,
Dip. Cor. 1863, I. 662.)
"The steadfast determination of the Government neither to say nor do any-
thing which could reasonably be construed into an interference was
tested in November, 1862, when it was proposed by the Emperor of the
French that the Courts of France, Russia, and Great Britain should ten-
der their good offices to both belligerents, in the hope of preparing the
way for an accommodation. M. Drouyn de l'Huys, in addressing himself
to the British Government, dwelt on the 'innumerable calamities and
immense bloodshed' which attended the war, and on the evils which it
inflicted upon Europe. The two contending parties, he said, had up to
that time fought with balanced success, and there appeared to be no prob-
ability that the strife would soon terminate. He proposed, therefore,
that the three courts should join in recommending an armistice for six
months, during which means might be discovered for effecting a lasting
pacification. The British Government declined to take part in such a
recommendation, being satisfied that there was no reasonable prospect of
its being entertained by that of the United States. 'Depend upon it, my
lords,' said Earl Russell, addressing the House of Peers in 1863, 'that, if
this war is to cease, it is far better that it should cease by a conviction
both on the part of the North and on that of the South that they can
never live together again happily as one community and as one Republic,
and that the termination of hostilities can never be brought about by the
advice, the mediation, or the interference of any European power.'"
(Bernard's Neutrality of Gr. Br., 467.)

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.

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 recognition. 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."

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.

"This subject [of the recognition of belligerency] received a full Correspondence of 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.

453.

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

Dip. Cor. 1865, I. 611.

d Dip. Cor. 1865, I. 627–628. f Dip. Cor. 1865, II. 540.