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Justice of the United States, acted as American counsel.' Mr. B. R. Curtis was also invited to act as counsel for the United States, but he was unable to accept.2 Counsel were instructed to secure, if possible, the award of a sum in gross.

According to the treaty there were to be, in Neutral Arbitrators. addition to the arbitrators of the United States and Great Britain, three neutral arbitrators,

of whom the King of Italy, the President of the Swiss Confederation, and the Emperor of Brazil were each to be requested to name one. The King of Italy named Count Frederic Sclopis, of Salerano, minister of state, "a member of an eminent Piedmontese family, a senator of Italy, a distinguished judge, a learned lawyer, a man of letters, whose name and reputation were European." Among his numerous writings on jurispru dence is the Storio della Legislazione Italiana, a voluminous work, in which the successive stages of the medieval and modern legislation of the various States of Italy are exhibited. In person Count Sclopis "was tall beyond the ordinary height, noble, and commanding. In character he was firm, independent, upright, truthful. In manners he was a model for all gentlemen."4

The President of the Swiss Confederation named Mr. Jacques Staempfli, a German Swiss of the canton of Berne, an advocate, journalist, and statesman, a member of the council of state, a representative of Berne in the Diet, and three times President of the Swiss Confederation. "His theory of executive action was characteristic of the man, namely, When peril is certain, it is better to advance to meet it rather than timidly to await its approach.' In fine, preparation and decision" were "the distinctive traits of all the official acts of Mr. Staempfli."5

6

The Emperor of Brazil named Marcos Antonio d'Araujo, Baron d'Itajubá, who was in early life a member of the faculty of law of Olinda. Having been appointed consul-general of Brazil in the Hanse Towns, he successively held the offices of

For instructions to counsel, see Mr. Fish to Mr. Cushing, December 8, 1872, For. Rel. 1872, part 2, II. 414; instructions to agent, id. 414. 2 Cushing's Treaty of Washington, 95.

For identic notes requesting the appointment of the neutral arbitrators, see For. Rel. 1871, pp. 450-452.

4 Mr. Fish and the Alabama Claims, 84; Cushing's Treaty of Washington, 79; Larousse, xiv. 409.

5 Cushing's Treaty of Washington, 80-81.

minister or envoy at Hanover, Copenhagen, and Berlin; and at the time of his appointment as arbitrator he was envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Brazil at Paris. During the progress of the arbitration he was invested by his Emperor with the title of Viscount.'

"This account of the personnel of the arbitration would be imperfect without the mention of the younger but estimable persons who constituted the staff of the formal representatives of the two governments, namely: on the part of the United States Mr. C. C. Beaman, as solicitor, and Messrs. Brooks Adams, John Davis, F. W. Hackett, W. F. Peddrick, and Edward T. Waite, as secretaries; and on the part of Great Britain, in the latter capacity or as translators, Messrs. Sanderson, Markheim, Villiers, Langley, and Hamilton."2 Mr. Beaman assisted Mr. Davis by arranging, under the latter's general direction, the evidence presented with the American case respecting the national and individual claims.3

Preliminaries.

On the 2d of December 1871 Mr. Davis arArrangement of the rived in Paris, where he found Lord Tenterden. On the 4th each of them, in his capacity as agent, addressed notes to the several arbitrators notifying them of the wish of his government that the conferences might begin on the 15th of December. On the 13th Mr. Davis and Lord Tenterden set out from Paris for Geneva in company with Mr. Adams and Sir Alexander Cockburn. On the way they discussed the organization of the tribunal and arranged the preliminaries.

1 Cushing's Treaty of Washington, 85. "He possessed," said Mr. Cushing, "courteous and attractive manners, intelligence disciplined by long experience of men and affairs, instinctive appreciation of principles and facts, and the ready expression of thought in apt language, but without the tendency to run into the path of debate or exposition which appeared in the acts of some of his collagues of the tribunal of arbitration.

"In comparing Mr. Staempfli, with his deep-brown complexion, his piercing dark eyes, his jet black hair, his quick but suppressed manner, and the Viscount of Itajubá, with his fair complexion and his air of gentleness and affability, one having no previous knowledge of their respective origins would certainly attribute that of the former to tropical and passionate America, and that of the latter to temperate and calm-blooded Europe."

2 Cushing's Treaty of Washington, 97.

3 Report of Mr. Davis, September 21, 1872, For. Rel. 1872, part 2, IV. 2; Mr. Davis to Mr. Fish, November 13, 1871, For. Rel. 1872, part 2, IV. 413. Mr. Beaman published in March, 1871, a volume entitled "The National and Private Alabama Claims and their Final and Amicable Settlement," in which he presented a basis of possible adjustment.

Opening of the
Arbitration.

On the afternoon of the 15th of December the proceedings of the arbitration were begun by the informal examination of the powers of the arbitrators, which were found to be in due form. The scene of the meeting was the Hotel de Ville, which the cantonal government of Geneva had placed at the disposal of the tribunal. In the hall of this building, known as the "Salle des Conférences," the meetings of the arbitrators were held and the great questions submitted to them decided.

Count Sclopis as
President.

After the examination of the arbitrators' full powers, Mr. Adams said that as neither he nor Sir Alexander Cockburn could preside, it had been thought advisable to invite the gentleman next in rank, in the order named in the treaty, to preside over the meetings of the tribunal. Sir Alexander Cockburn seconded the proposal, not only, as he said, for the reason given by Mr. Adams, but also because Count Sclopis was one of the most illustrious jurists of Europe. Count Sclopis then took the chair, and in returning his thanks he expressed the belief that "the meeting of the tribunal indicated of itself the impression of new direction on the public policy of nations the most advanced in civilization, and the commencement of an epoch in which the spirit of moderation and the sentiment of equity were beginning to prevail over the tendency of old routines of arbitrary violence or culpable indifference. He signified regret that the pacific object of the congress of Paris had not been seconded by events in Europe. He congratulated the world that the statesmen who directed the destinies of Great Britain and the United States, with rare firmness of conviction and devotion to the interests of humanity, resisting all temptations of vulgar ambition, had magnanimously and courageously traversed in peace the difficulties which had divided them both before and since the conclusion of the treaty. He quoted approvingly the opinion expressed by Mr. Gladstone, on the one hand, and by President Washington, on the other, in commendation of the policy of peace, of justice, and of honor in the conduct of nations. And he proclaimed in behalf of his colleagues, as well as of himself, the purpose of the tribunal, acting sometimes with the large perception of statesmen, sometimes with the scrutinizing eye of judges, and always with a profound sentiment of equity and with absolute impartiality, thus to discharge its high duty of pacification as well as of justice to the two governments."

'Cushing's Treaty of Washington, 77.

Appointment of Secretary.

After the discourse of Count Sclopis, Mr. Alexander Favrot, of Berne, was named by Mr. Staempfli, on the request of the arbitra

tors, as secretary to the tribunal.

Presentation of
Cases.

Mr. Davis and Lord Tenterden then, with identic notes, presented the cases of their respective governments, and the tribunal "directed that the respective counter cases, additional documents, correspondence, and evidence called for or permitted by the fourth article of the treaty should be delivered to the secretary of the tribunal at the hall of the conference in the Hotel de Ville at Geneva, for the arbitrators and for the respective agents, on or before the 15th day of April next." On the 16th of December the tribunal met again, and adjourned till the 15th of the following June, unless sooner convened by the secretary. Writing confidentially to Mr. Fish after this adjournment, Mr. Davis said: "Thus far everything looks well. The arbitrators are evidently impressed with the gravity of the questions submitted to them, and approach the work with a desire and purpose of dealing justly with both parties. We can wish for nothing better than this."

Case of the United
States.

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The Case of the United States opened with an introductory chapter, in which the provisions of the treaty relating to the Alabama claims were set forth, together with the statements in the protocols of the joint high commission in regard to the negotiations. The second chapter was entitled, "The unChapter on British friendly course pursued by Great Britain

Unfriendliness.

toward the United States from the outbreak to the close of the insurrection." On the 6th of November 1860 Abraham Lincoln was, said the Case of the United States, elected President of the United States in strict conformity with the provisions of the Constitution and laws of the country, on a platform which declared "that the normal condition of all the territory of the United States" was "that of freedom," and which denied "the authority of Congress, of a Territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States," the word "Territory" being here used in the sense of an incipient

Protocol, For. Rel. 1872, part 2, IV. 16.

2 Id. 17.

December 16, 1871, MSS. Dent, of State.

political organization which might at some future time become. a State. Soon afterward the people of South Carolina, through a State convention, declared their purpose to secede from the Union on the ground that the party about to come into power had announced that the South should be "excluded from the common territory." The State of Alabama, on the 11th of January 1861, through a convention in which the vote stood 61 yeas to 39 nays, followed the example of South Carolina, giving as the reason that the election of President Lincoln "by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions. (i. e., slavery) of Alabama," was "a political wrong of an insulting and menacing character." The State of Georgia, after a much greater struggle, took the same course, the final vote being 208 yeas to 89 nays. Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, ́and Texas each framed an ordinance of secession from the Union before the 4th of February, in each case with more or less unanimity. On that day representatives from some of the States which had attempted to go through the form of secession, and representatives from the State of North Carolina, which had not at that time attempted it, met at Montgomery, in the State of Alabama, for the purpose of organizing a provisional government, and elected Jefferson Davis as the provisional president and Alexander H. Stephens as provisional vice-president of the proposed confederation. Jefferson Davis, in accepting this office, on the 18th of February made a speech in which the perpetuation of slavery was virtually admitted to be the cause of the secession movement; and Mr. Stephens explicitly declared that the "corner stone" of the new government rested upon "the great truth" that the negro was "not equal to the white man," and that slavery was "his natural and moral condition." No other State passed ordinances of sccession till after the fall of Fort Sumter. Before that time the people of Tennessee and Missouri voted by large majorities against secession; and in the States of North Carolina and Virginia conventions were called which were known to be opposed to the movement in South Carolina and the six States bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, and which were still in session when some of the events subsequently referred to took place. A large minority, if not a majority, of the people of the slave States known as Border States and of the mountainous parts of the six States known as the Gulf States did not desire separation. Their feelings were expressed in a speech 5627-36

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