sioned vessels of a belligerent nation, and did not take Mr. Lincoln's view of the "artificial crisis" in America, yet it did not suffer the privateers of the Confederacy to refit and sell their prizes in the English ports.

On the 1st June, 1861, Her Britannic Majesty's government issued orders by which the armed ships of both belligerents, whether public ships-of-war or privateers, were interdicted from carrying prizes made by them into the ports, harbors, roadsteads, or waters of the United Kingdom, or of any of Her Majesty's colonies or possessions abroad.

The government of the Confederate States remonstrated warmly against these orders, as practically unequal in their operation, and unduly disadvantageous to the belligerent whose ports were blockaded. The Secretary of State of the United States expressed his satisfaction with them, as likely to "prove a death-blow to Southern privateering." These orders were strictly enforced throughout the whole period of the war, and no armed vessel was suffered to bring prizes into any British port. The foreign powers admitted the legality of the blockade, and as a necessary and legitimate consequence they acknowledged the Confederate States as belligerents, and threw open their ports to both parties on the same conditions and under precisely similar restrictions. "What Mr. Seward wanted," truthfully says Commander Bulloch, "was that Europe should permit the United States to remain in the enjoyment of every privilege guaranteed by treaties of peace, free and unrestricted access to the ports, the right to buy arms and transport them unmolested across the sea, to engage men and forward them to the battle-fields in Virginia without question, and, at the same time, that the whole world should tolerate a total suppression of trade with eleven great provinces, and suffer the United States to seize ships on the high seas, and hale them before prize-courts, unless they were protected by the certificate of an American Consul."

The European Powers having acknowledged the existence of a de facto government at Montgomery, and afterward at

To

1The Supreme Court of the United States, through Justice Grier, gave the following judg ment of a prize case brought before it: legitimatize the capture of a neutral vessel or property on the high seas, a war must exist de facto, and the neutral must have a knowledge or notice of the intention of one of the parties belligerent to use this mode of coercion against a port, city, or territory, in possession of the other. The proclamation of the blockade is itself official and conclusive evidence to the court that a state of war existed which demanded and authorized a recourse to such a measure under the circumstances peculiar to the case. The correspondence of Lord Lyons with the Secretary of State admits the fact and concludes the question."

The European powers, acting upon this decision, acknowledged the Confederate States as belligerents. They saw eighteen or more great States, acknowledging a central government at

Washington, engaged in war with eleven other great States, adhering to a common authority at Richmond. This was the actual condition of affairs. All the special pleading of the politicians at Washington, all the finesse of diplomatic reasoning, could not alter the facts. Foreign powers perceived the actual state of affairs, and the proclamations of neutrality, and the regula tions specifying the conditions upon which their ports might be used, were framed in accordance with the fact that there was a state of war between two separate powers, and although one could glory in the full-fledged title of "a government de jure," and the other was shackled with the more restrictive appellation of "a government de facto," yet in regard to belligerent rights and duties they were placed on precisely the same footing by the common consent and common action of the whole civilized world.-Bulloch, Vol. I., p. 303.

Richmond, by eleven great States, with a population of more than six millions of people, that acknowledgment carried with it the concession of all belligerent rights. Privateering being one of these rights, the right of the Confederate government to issue letters marque to private vessels to enable them to capture those of the enemy, was as well established by the code of international law as any other vested in a belligerent for its protection and defence. All governments have resorted to privateering whenever they found it available against a maritime foe. The United States always regarded the right as unquestionable, and never surrendered it, though Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia, and Turkey agreed among themselves to do so in 1856 by the treaty of Paris.'

When the circular invitation of the Powers was sent to the United States government in 1856, Secretary of State Wm. L. Marcy, in his letter, dated July 28th, to the foreign Plenipotentiaries, proposed to amend the rules by the addition of a new article, excepting private property at sea from capNo action was taken on the proposal, and the negotiations were suspended until Mr. Lincoln's accession to office.

ture.

1 The following is the language of the terms of the treaty:

"1. Privateering is and remains abolished. 2. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods with the exception of contraband of war.

3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under the enemy's flag.

4. Blockades in order to be binding must be effective-that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy.

The governments of the undersigned Plenipotentiaries engage to bring the present declaration to the knowledge of the States which have not taken part in the Congress of Paris, and to invite them to accede to it.

Convinced that the maxims which they now proclaim cannot but be received with gratitude by the whole world, the undersigned Plenipotentaries doubt not that the efforts of their gov. ernments to obtain the general adoption thereof will be crowned with full success.

The present declaration is not and shall not be binding except between those powers who have acceded or shall accede to it.

Done at Paris, the 16th of April, 1856."

2 In his letter to the foreign powers Mr. Marcy strongly defended privateering. He said, among other things, that:

"In regard to the right to employ privateers, which is declared to be abolished by the first principle put forth in the Declaration,' there was, if possible, less uncertainty. The right to resort to privateers is as clear as the right to use public armed ships, and as incontestable as any other right appertaining to belligerents. The policy of that law has been occasionally questioned-not, however, by the best authorities; but the law itself has been universally admitted, and most nations have not hesitated to avail themselves of it; it is as well sustained by prac tice and public opinion as any other to be found in the maritime code.

2

"There is scarcely any rule of international law which particular nations in their treaties have not occasionally suspended or modified in regard to its application to themselves. Two treaties only can be found in which the contracting parties have agreed to abstain from the employment of privateers in case of war between them. The first was a treaty between the King of Sweden and the States General of the United Provinces, in 1675. Shortly after it was concluded, the parties were involved in war and the stipulation concerning privateers was entirely disregarded by both. The second was the treaty of 1785, between the United States and the King of Prussia. When this treaty was renewed in 1799, the clause stipulating not to resort to priva teering was omitted. For the last half-century there has been no arrangement, by treaty or otherwise, to abolish the right until the recent proceedings of the Plenipotentiaries at Paris. *

In a work of much repute, published in France almost simultaneously with the proceedings of the Congress at Paris, it is declared that The issuing of letters of marque, therefore, is a constantly customary belligerent act. Privateers are bona fide war vessels, manned by volunteers, to whom, by way of reward, the Sovereign resigns such prizes as they make, in the same manner as he sometimes assigns to the land forces a portion of the war contributions levied on the conquered enemy." Pistoye et Duverdy, des Prises Maritimes. *

"No nation which has a due sense of self-re. spect will allow any other, belligerent or neutral, to determine the character of the force which it may deem proper to use in prosecuting hostilities; nor will it act wisely if it voluntarily sur renders the right to resort to any means, sanc tioned by international law, which under any circumstances may be advantageously used for defence or aggression. * **The importance of privateers to the community of nations, excepting only those of great naval strength, is not only vindicated by history, but sustained by high authority. The following passage in the

About a week after President Davis' proclamation was issued, announcing his purpose of issuing letters of marque, Mr. Seward instructed the Minister of the United States at London to re-open negotiations, and offered to accede unconditionally to the Paris Declaration. This proposal seemed to point too strongly to an effort to treat President Davis, Lee and Stonewall Jackson as common brawlers or "rebels," and the "piratical rovers" as unworthy of shelter or assistance, and fit only to be pursued and destroyed as a common enemy and a common pest, which the British government refused. As the United States were thus debarred from any present advantage to be derived from the adoption of the rule, the whole question was dropped, and both belligerents were kept under the same restrictions. 2

The right, therefore, of President Davis to issue "letters of marque" was not questioned by any of the European

treatise on maritime prizes, to which I have before referred, deserves particular attention:

"Privateers are especially useful to those powers whose navy is inferior to that of their enemies. Belligerents, with powerful and extensive naval armaments, may cruise upon the seas with their national navies; but should those States, whose naval forces are of less power and extent, be left to their own resources, they could not hold out in a maritime war; whilst by the equipment of privateers they may succeed in inflicting upon the enemy an injury equivalent to that which they themselves sustain. Hence, governments have frequently been known, by every possible appliance, to favor privateering armaments. It has even occurred that sovereigns, not merely satisfied with issuing letters of marque, have also taken, as it were, an interest in the armament. Thus did Louis XIV. frequently lend out his ships, and sometimes reserve for himself a share in the prizes."

History throws much light upon this subject. France, at an early period, was without a Davy, and in her wars with Great Britain and Spain, both then naval powers, she resorted with signal good effect to privateering, not only for protection, but successful aggression. She obtained many privateers from Holland, and by this force gained decided advantages on the ocean over her enemy. Whilst in that condition, France could hardly have been expected to originate or concur in a proposition to abolish privateering. The condition of many of the smaller States of the world is now, in relation to Daval powers, not much unlike that of France in the middle of the sixteenth century. later period during the reign of Louis XIV., several expeditions were fitted out by him, composed wholly of privateers, which were most effectually employed in prosecuting hostilities with naval powers.

At a

"The ocean is the common property of all nations, and instead of yielding to a measure which will be likely to secure to a few-pos sibly to one-an ascendancy over it each should pertinaciously retain all means it possesses to defend the common heritage."

1Sir Admiral Cockburn said: "Men refused to see in the leaders of the South the rebels and the pirates' held up by the United States to public reprobation."

"Whatever the cause in which they are exhibited, devotion and courage will ever find respect, and they did so in this instance. Men could not see in the united people of these vast provinces, thus risking all in the cause of na tionality and independence, the common case of rebels disturbing peace and order on account of imaginary grievances, or actuated by the desire to overthrow a government in order to rise upon its ruins. They gave credit to the statesmen and warriors of the South-their cause may be right or wrong-for the higher motives which ennoble political action, and all the opprobrious terms which might be heaped upon the cause in which he fell could not persuade the world that the earth beneath which Stonewall Jackson rests does not cover the remains of a patriot and a hero."—Geneva Arbitrat'n, p. 72, 114.

2 The President of the United States was himself at one time an avowed secessionist or revolutionist. In a speech delivered in the House of Representatives on the 12th of January, 1848, Mr. Lincoln, then an honorable member from Illinois, used this language:

Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have a right to rise up and shake off the existing governmeut and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, sacred right-a right which, we believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this: a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority intermingled with or near about them, who may oppose their movements. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws, but to break up both and make new ones."-Appendix, Congressional Globe, 1st Session, 30th Congress, p. 94. See also on this subject, opinion of Alexander Hamilton, Bancroft's History of the United States, pp. 213 and 232; also to language of John Adams in same work. Also Rawle on the Constitution, p. 292. Appendix to the Virginia edition of Blackstone's Commentaries by St. George Tucker in 1802, pp. 73, 74; Dwight's History of Connecticut, pp. 435, 436, 437; 8th Mass. Reports, 546; Scharf's History of Maryland, Vol. III., pp. 338 to 316, etc.