OF

HON. CHARLES SUMNER,

ON THE

Johnson--Clarendon Treaty for the Settlement of Claims.

DELIVERED IN THE U. S. SENATE.

WITH

AN APPENDIX.

BOSTON:

WRIGHT & POTTER, PRINTERS, 79 MILK STREET,

(CORNER OF FEDERAL STREET.)

DU CHOC DES IDÉES VIENT LA LUMIERE.

PREFACE.

In giving to the British public a full and corrected edition of Senator Sumner's speech in the United States Senate, with part of his address to the Massachusetts convention in September, 1869, we hope to do something towards clearing the way for a better understanding between England and America.

To our many English friends who have only read garbled extracts from this speech, this may seem a paradox, for we

are

aware that many whose opinions we value still regard it as a firebrand rather than a peace-offering.

To fully appreciate not only its motive, but its real effect, the reader must grasp the American as well as the English state of public opinion, and must not only go a little back into our history, but also a little forward into the probable future.

We now try to direct the attention of the friends of peace to a few points which we think tend to sustain our position, that Senator Sumner's speech was the best contribution that has been made towards that good understanding between the two nations, for which he has always been a warm advocate.

In making this attempt we alone are responsible for the use which we make of materials now belonging to the public; having received from the author no aid beyond a corrected copy of his speech, with permission to re-publish it, without any other condition than that it shall be given unabridged.

1. To go back.

The speech was delivered in a community whose members were only too familiar, personally or by near tradition, with the irritating incidents of the two wars between England and the United States, from the employment of foreign mercenaries and Indians in the first war, down to the impressment of our seamen and the seizure of our vessels while carrying on neutral commerce, which led to the second one.

To the older part of this community, an Englishman and an enemy had long been almost synonymous terms, but its younger members had been gradually forgetting these old grievances, and under the influence of commerce and steam and the telegraph, which made us better acquainted with the English people and especially with their liberal party, it seemed, just before the rebellion, as if an era of good feeling were approaching, at least at the North. Slavery appeared to be the chief barrier to a cordial alliance between the two Nations, which might place them shoulder to shoulder as the advance guard of freedom in the world, and on the 13th of April, 1861, we looked confidently to England for that moral support and sympathy which alone we needed or desired.

The hasty recognition of belligerency came upon us like a clap of thunder in a clear sky, and when this was followed by the open rejoicings of the governing and trading classes in England over the bursting of the bubble of free government and the downfall of a commercial rival, and then by the outfitting of rebel cruisers in English ports, all the old bitterness returned, aggravated by the universal feeling that Great Britain was influenced in her action by our weakness, and was hitting us when we were down.

France may have been more our enemy than Great Britain, for its government was a despotic unit, while we had open and generous friends in the British cabinet and parliament, and a noble people in the background, who in spite of their want of votes exercised an influence for us; but our people read English and do not read French, and they heard and read everything which the English press printed for and against us. What wonder if upon a people so prepared by old prejudices, the immense preponderance of unjust and bitter criticism gave the impression of national enmity?

Rightly or wrongly our people with more unanimity than they had on any other subject, looked upon the English government as using its power to help our enemies, in the selfish hope of breaking down a commercial and political rival.

This feeling was not confined to the uneducated or unthinking; it was as nearly as possible universal.

When at the end of the war we disbanded our army and navy without first asking explanations or reparation for our in