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In the play between the two forces, a government too weak to command respect; a native population too resentful to yield obedience, a state of social disorder and political chaos resulted, which would in advance have seemed impossible among any people clothed with the right of self-government, and living under a Republic of vast power and prestige.

The Republicans lost in many of the Southern States a valuable support upon which they had counted with confidence. Union men whom no persecution could break and no blandishments could seduce, were to be found in the South at the outbreak of the rebellion. They were men who in a less conspicuous way held the same faith that inspired Andrew Johnson and William G. Brownlow during the war. It was the influence and example of this class of men which had contributed to the Union Army so large a number of white soldiers from the rebellious States, numbering in the aggregate more than one hundred thousand men. Tennessee alone furnished at least thirty-five thousand white troops as brave as ever followed the flag. The Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, all furnished loyal men from their mountain districts; and beyond the Mississippi a valuable contingent came from Arkansas and Texas.

The men who had the courage to stand for the Union in time of war should not have separated from its friends in time of peace. If Reconstruction had been completed according to the first design, on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment, these men would have remained solidly hostile to the Southern Democracy. But as the contest waxed warm, as negro suffrage became a prominent issue, many of them broke away from their associations and became the bitterest foes of the Republican party. They followed Andrew Johnson and partook of his spirit. But against all adverse influences, some of the truest and best of this class of Union men remained with the Republican party. If the whole number had proved steadfast, they would have formed the centre of a strong and growing influence in the South which in many localities would have been able - as in East Tennessee-to resist the combined rebel power of their respective communities. Under such protection the colored vote, intelligently directed and defended, could have resisted the violence which has practically deprived it of all influence. Every day affords fresh proof of the disasters which have resulted to the Republican party of the South from the loss of so large a proportion of the original Union.

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Perhaps the most serious charge brought against the Republican policy by the Southern men, was that the negro was advanced to the right of suffrage, while a portion of the white population were placed under such political disabilities as prevented their voting. This allegation is often made, however, in a way that leads to erroneous impressions, because as matter of fact it was not the policy of Congress to deprive any man of the right of suffrage. Congress even left the voting franchise in full force with those who were under such political disabilities as forbade their holding office. It is true that in a certain election under the Reconstruction laws the voter was subjected to a test-oath, but this condition was imposed under what seemed to be a fair plea of necessity; for it was applied in the South only after the entire white population had refused to reconstruct their States on the basis first freely offered them, with no restriction on white suffrage, and even before the negro was empowered to vote. Fearing from this experience that any organization of a State under the auspices of Republican power might be voted down, Congress resorted to the expedient of confining the suffrage in the preliminary stage to those who had not rebelled, and who could therefore be firmly trusted to establish a loyal government.

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While the National Government refrained from withholding the elective franchise from men who had fought to destroy the Union, there is no doubt that disabilities and exclusions were imposed upon large classes in certain States of the South. But perhaps even here there have been exaggeration and misunderstanding, for in some of the reconstructed States, notably Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas,—there were no test-oaths and no exclusion from the right of suffrage by reason of participation in the rebellion; and yet hostility to the Reconstruction Acts, and personal wrongs and injuries to the colored men, were quite as marked in these States as in those where certain classes of citizens labored under the stigma of exclusion from the ballot. Possibly it might be said that exclusion, even in one State, was an odious discrimination which all who had taken part in the rebellion would, from a feeling of fellowship, resent and resist. But the truth remains, nevertheless, that in the Southern States in which no test-oaths were applied disturbance, disorder, and resistance to law were as frequent and flagrant as in those where suffrage had in some degree been qualified and restricted.

The original difficulty was the rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment by the South- a difficulty that recurred not only at every

subsequent step of reconstruction, but was even more plainly demonstrated after reconstruction was nominally complete. If that Amendment had been accepted by the Southern States as the basis of reconstruction, the suffrage of the colored man would have followed as a necessity and a boon to the South. It would have originated in popular demand, and the State authorities, instead of expending their power in resisting the decree of the Nation, would have upheld the same franchise with all the earnestness which the combined power of necessity and self-interest could inspire. It is difficult to compute the loss and the suffering endured by the South from the folly of rejecting a Constitutional Amendment, which they could have had with all its benefits, and which they were compelled afterwards to accept with all its burdens. This unhappy result to the South was the fruit of their unwise adherence to Andrew Johnson in a political battle which he was predestined to lose.

It was not unnatural that the unwise action on the part of the South should lead to unwise action on the part of the North; but it must be remembered that if mistakes were made in the system of reconstruction they were for a day only, while the objects sought were for all time. The misfortune was, that the mistakes blinded the eyes of many candid and patriotic men to the real merit of the struggle. It is not the first time in history where a great and noble purpose has been weakened and thwarted by prejudices aroused against the means used to effect it. The design was broad, patriotic, generous, and statesmanlike: the means to attain it aroused prejudices which created obstacles at every step and led to almost fatal embarrassment. The elevation of a race, the stamping out of the last vestige of caste, the obliteration of cruel wrongs, were the objects aimed at by the Republicans. If they remain unaccomplished, or only partially accomplished, no discredit can attach to the great political organization which entertained lofty conceptions of human rights, and projected complete measures for their realization. That prejudice should stand in the way of principle, that subsidiary issues should embarrass the attainment of great ends, that personal and partisan interests should for a time override the nobler instincts of philanthropy, must be regarded with regret, but not with discouragement.

CHAPTER XX.

RESENTMENT AGAINST ENGLAND. —POPULAR FEELING IN THE UNITED STATES.-CONDUCT OF THE Palmerston MINISTRY.-HOSTILE SPEECHES IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. MR. ROEBUCK.-LORD ROBERT CECIL. CONDUCT OF THE TORIES. - OF THE LIBERALS. — CRITICISMS OF THE BRITISH PRESS. — SOUTH COMPARED WITH IRELAND. - UNITED STATES DEMANDS COMPENSATION. — REFUSED BY ENGLAND. — NEGOTIATIONS. — JOHNSON-CLARENDON TREATY. — REJECTED BY SENATE. — CHARACTER OF TREATY.-SPEECH OF MR. SUMNER.-POSITION OF PRESIDENT GRANT. -NEGOTIATION CLOSED. - ENGLAND ASKS THAT IT BE RE-OPENED. JOINT HIGH COMMISSION.ITS DELIBERATIONS. —ITS Basis of SettleMENT. — GENEVA AWARD. -THE THREE RULES. — ENGLAND'S COURSE IN REGARD THERETO. — PRIVATE CLAIMS ADJUSTED.—THE SAN JUAN QUESTION.-ITS FINAL SETTLEMENT.-HON. GEORGE BANCROFT.

THE

HE civil war closed with ill-feeling amounting to resentment towards England on the part of the loyal citizens of the United States. They believed that the Government of Great Britain, and especially the aristocratic and wealthy classes (whose influence in the kingdom is predominant), had desired the destruction of the Union, and had connived at it so far as connivance was safe; they believed that great harm had been inflicted on the American marine by rebel cruisers built in English ship-yards and manned with English sailors; they believed that the war had been cruelly prolonged by the Con- · federate hope of British intervention, a hope stimulated by the utterances of high officials of the British Government; they believed that her Majesty's Ministers would have been willing at any time to recognize the Southern Confederacy, if it could have been done. without the danger of a European conflict, the effect of which upon the interests of England could not be readily measured.

Their belief did not wait for legal proofs or written arguments, nor was it in any degree restrained by technicalities. The American people had followed the varying fortunes of the war with intense solicitude, and had made up their minds that the British Government throughout the contest had been unfriendly and offensive, manifestly violating at every step the fair and honorable duty of a neutral.

They did not ground their conclusions upon any specially enunciated principles of international law; they did not seek to demonstrate, by quotations from accepted authorities, that England had failed in this or in that respect to perform her duty towards the American Government. They simply recognized that England's hand had been against us, concealed somewhat, and used indirectly, but still heavily against us. They left to the officers of their own Government the responsible task of stating the law and submitting the evidence when the proper time should come.

Perhaps the mass of the people in no other country keep so close a watch upon the progress of public events as is kept by the people of the United States. If the scholarship of the few is not so thorough as in certain European countries, the intelligence of the many is far beyond that of any other nation. The popular conclusions, therefore, touching the conduct of England, did not spring from imagination or from prejudice; nor were they the result of illogical inference. To the outside world the British Government is the British Parliament; and citizens of the United States knew that their country had been subjected in the House of Lords and in the House of Commons to every form of misrepresentation, to every insult which malice could invent, to every humiliation which insolence and arrogance could inflict. The most distant generation of Americans will never be able to read the Parliamentary reports from 1861 to 1865 without indignation. Discussions touching the condition of the United States occupied no small share of the time in both Houses, and in the House of Lords cordiality was never expressed for the Union. In the House of Commons the Government of the United States had sympathizing friends, eloquent defenders, though few in number. Bright, Forster, Cobden, and men of that class, spoke brave words in defense of the cause for which brave deeds were done by their kindred on this side of the Atlantic-a kindred always more eager to cherish gratitude than to nurture revenge.

But from the Government of England, terming itself Liberal, with Lord Palmerston at its head, Earl Russell as Foreign Secretary, Mr. Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Duke of Argyll as Lord Privy Seal, and Earl Granville as Lord President of the Council, not one friendly word was sent across the Atlantic. A formal neutrality was declared by Government officials, while its spirit was daily violated. If the Republic had been a dependency of Great Britain, like Canada or Australia, engaged in civil strife, it could

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