Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1870-08-11
The IOWA VOTER.
A. r. spsrry, Editor.
The Alabanna Clain,s.

Now that the European war seems
liable at any time to involve other
nations than the original contestants,
It seems to N that England must
naturally desire to have our Alabama
claims disposed of, and the prece-
dents they bring put out of the way
lest in the time of trouble they re-
turn to plague her. Two strong
editorials in Hd,per's Weekly for the
9Th inst. bear so well upon this mat
ter, and seem so sound and sensible,
that we quote the ideas of one of
them, and section from the other:
Sentimental craftsmanship" may
be sneered at, but there is something
in it after all. Mere dollars and cents
alone will not make the Alabama
matter all right, else the Seward
johnson treaty would have been
efectual, which was so quickly re-
jected by our country. DIR. Franklin,
one of the most purely practical of
men, approved the main idea of what
is now called ''sentimentalism" in
craftsmanship, when, at the close of
our Revolution, he suggested that
the English Government should
make some acknowledgment of it's
wrong sin distressing these countries
SO much" But Great Britain need
not getdown on her knees and make
confession of wrong toward US, moth
ing of the kind. Let her settle the
dollars-and-cents part of the matter
in dollars and cents; and then, let
her in some official manner declare
that she does not wish her actions
toward us in the civil war regarded
as precedents nor held as according
to international law hereafter. This
will be q virtual acknowledgment Of
the wrong done US, and of regret
therefor. This also will place En-
gland on a safer footing with respect
to future international possibilities.
But what now was the gist Of the
Sentimental" part of the grievance?
This: that England manifested undue
haste to orecognize the Southern rebels
as belligerents. This is what Sec'y
Fish complained of, in his note Of
last September. And the facts which
justify this complaint are that son
the 9Th of May, 1861, Lord Russell
stated in Parliment that the Govern
ment had consulted the law officers,
and had decided that "the Southern
Confederacy, according to the princi-
Piles which seem to them to be just
principles, must be treated as bellig-
erents." The law officers advised no
action. They said only that the
Government was "entitled" to con-
cede belligerency if it desired. When
Lord Russell announced the decision
the newsof the bloodless assault upon
Fort Sumter was not ten days old in
England. No other act that had the
least appearance of war was officially
known to the British Government;
and the new American Minister,
charged to communicate
the policy of the United States Gov
ernment, had not yet arrived. On
the 1lth of May the British Govern
ment was officially informed of Pres
ident Lincoln's proclamation OF
and on the 18th of May the
Queens proclamation, conceding
belligerency, issued. Thus, five days
before the British Government had
any Official knowledge Of the fact by
which that proclamation is now JUS
titled, 1t had resolved to issue 1t. Mr..
Fish complains of "undue haste"
Could words be more exactly used?"
The European War.