The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1869-05-20
Our Claims ON England.


Our Claims ON England.
Few public men have ever been happier in
occasion of great speech, than Mr.. Sum-
ner was in the Senate on the 18th of April, in
arraigning England for her treacherous par
ticipation in our rebellion. A great nation,
proud in the vindication of its imperial strength
stood behind him. He, who had so often been
the utterer of unpopular truths, whose eio-
qusnce had stung two-thirds of his country
men to rage and hate, was called upon by the
prophecies of his place to become the oracle OF
tbe nonular feeling to speak in the very direc-
ton of the national instincts and the national
antnatbies. The sanction of an almost unani-
NOUS Senate fifty represented the sympathy of
an almost unanimous country; while the
speech was, and was recognized by the admin
istration and its constituency, as the emphatic
expression of the vigorous foreign policy of
the new president.
The effect of Mr.. Summers speech, publish
ed more than a month ago, has not yet ceased,
for we have been enjoying in the interval the
concentrated and universal anger with which
England responded to it. 1t on the whole
gratifed our national feeling that, not content
with the brutum fulnaen of indignant words.
our guilty neighbor across the ocean sought to
strengthen herself in her purpose of refusing
PREPARATION by fresh alliance with France
and Spain.
But now after a month to think of it, with
our claim put forward by the American states
man most popular in England, in q statement
as extravagant in substance as it is mod
crate in temper, what are we going to do about
it? To arouse the stupid British indifference
to some just comprehension of the interna-
tonal treachery of which England has been
clearly guilty Mr.. Summers eloquent state
ment of our grievance was admirable, and has
been completely eficacious.
We are half to blame ourselves for
this indifference. We bore without o
resort to war on the instant, the Bit
ter affront of the neutrality proclama-
ton, and the sending of the Alabama to sea,
because our diplomacy was in the hands Of
Seward, who never believed in meeting dan
ger or an affront, when it was possible to
. Roriggle away from it. 1t is always awkward
TO remind ourselves that we ought to have
felt insulted, and clumsy enough TO ask
weeks afterwards an apology or an indemnity
for what the fitting response was prompt
knocking de,cn on the spot. Mr.. Stewards
timidity has not been at all reinforced by be-
ing communicated through the cold and half
hearted diplomacy of our Minister Adams AS
for the maudlin drivel of Reverdy johnson,
his after-dinner hugging and Misunderstanding,
his fatuous attempt to float an international
misunderstanding upon sea of conviviality,
they have done what they could to make us
and our grievance ridiculous.
The recall of Mr.. johnson, the contemptu-
Gus rejection by the Senate of his treaty, and
the speech Of Mr.. Summer were the fitting ex-
pressions of the national impatience. They
placed us before the power that had wrenged
IFS, in a temper not to be treated with
wheedling and cajolery Itwas like the hearty
sDedring of a man, who feels angry because
he knows he has been abused, and is all the
nngrier because instead of acknowledgment
or redress, he finds himself insulted with hau-
teur and levity.
To put a serious face upon serious affront
to manifest an indignation, none the less
wholesome, that it has stirred q counter indig-
nation, this is something towards a settle
msnt But really do the American people
expect that Great Britain is going to pay this
year, or any fine year, the modest little BILL of
which Mr.. Sumner specifies but one item of
$110,0O0,0O0, the gross amount of which the
Pail Mall Gazette foots up at e5OO,OOOO 900?
Does Mr.. Boutwell, reckon upon this sum as
resources for reducing the national expendi-
ture? Does Mr.. Wells or even the sanguine
Delmar compute that two and half billion as
national assets? Shall we ever make up our
balance sheet with the rebellion thus:
: The Rebellion ct al, to the United States Dr.
10 the cost of war from 1861 to 1866 $4ooO,oOooO
By indemnity received of Great Britain,
$2,5oo,oOO. 900
Nett cost $1,5oo,OOO,oOo
We opine not. And why? Because such
wrongs as Britain did us in our civil war never
have been and never can be- compensated in
money. While England and Scotland were
two Kingdoms, France intrigued against En-
gland, and furnished both subsidies and men
for raids over the English border. Spain and
afterwards France were more or less comprom-
ised in every plot, that for two hundred years
disturbed the peace of Ireland England in
trigued against the republic in France while it
lasted and fought against Napoleon till his
overthrow at Waterloo, and France arrested
the unity and development of nationality in
Italy, For all these wrongs war followed
when it was possible with what possible re-
prisals it could give, but who before Brother
Jonathan ever pocketed the affront at the
time, and coolIy brought in his bill afterwards
for settlement?
Great Britain is certainly no more than an
acconeplce in the rebellion. The ten rebel
States were the principals Great Britain vio-
lated international law and the faith of trea-
ty in making war upon us; the South violated
the constitution and natural allegiance. In
our just Indignation we passed laws confsca-
ting the property and FORGETTING the lives of
our offending fellow-citizens But what prop
erty or lives have we claimed after their abject
submission? When we have let the princi-
pals go, repeating in their favor the very laws
we passed for their punishment, shall we
seize the accomplish and exact from him the
last farthing Of penalty?
But Mr.. Sumner quotes Mr.. Golden who
said of highlands conduct You haze been car
rying on aoar from these shores aoith the United
States" Suppose it were SO. Suppose instead
of quasi war, it had been an actual war
Suppose England had been the ally of the
South from July 1861 to April 1865, that the
Alabama and Georgia had been ships of the
British navy, that the blockade runners had
+. been conveyed by British squadrons; that the
raid into Calais and st. Adams had been ex-
petitions by mixed force of Provincial mi
1itia and British ro<.lary, tiIat w ashington
county in this State, and Niagara county in
New York had been temporarily in the posses
sion of the British. Suppose in addition to
the captures of merchant ships, Portland had
been burnt, and New York bombarded. If
the war had ceased upon Lees surrender, the
United States not having been able to estab
fish any military foothold across the Northern
frontier. would the United States expect in
treaty, which virtually gave amnesty to the
Rebels, to exact full indemnity from their al
w? Does not the very consideration that
Great Britain stlid carry on from her shores scar
aoith the United States" place our case beyond
the possibility of just recompense? 1t is then
possible, that after getting vent for our just
anger, which the cold and complaisant lips of
Messrs. Seward, Adams and johnson could
never utter, we may come back to settle
ment, based upon the value of the property
destroyed by the Anglo-rebel cruisers, back to
the basis even of Mr.. Johnson's treaty.
For our greater wrongs are we to have no
redress, if not in money, in some equivalent
satisfaction? This is possible. An apoIopy. if
the pride of England could stoop to it, would
1,a n ridiculous settlement of so ,-o,,o . -