made at this period. The first of these, the famous Texas vs. White case of 1868,1 while upholding congressional reconstruction, pronounced that the seceding states had not been out of the Union, and that the act of secession was void. The second, in 1869, was a decision against the constitutionality of the Legal Tender Law of 1862. In this famous case, Hepburn vs. Griswold, Chief Justice Chase pronounced unconstitutional a portion of the law by which he had, as secretary of the treasury, issued the greenbacks eight years before. The decision pronounced against the validity of the law with reference to preexisting debts. But this decision was not permitted to stand. Two new justices having been appointed, the case was tried again the next year and the decision was reversed. Finally, the "Slaughter House" cases of 1873 concerning the chartering of a company by the government of Louisiana practically set state rights on the same footing as that commonly understood at the North before the war, and decidedly limited the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment. These decisions were very conservative in their tendencies, and they strongly emphasize what I have stated on a preceding page, that the Civil War wrought little permanent change in the civil government of the nation, or even in the relation of the states to the Union. The great industrial event of this period was the completion of the first railroad across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. The great West was rapidly growing. In the late fifties gold had been discovered on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, near the present city of Denver, and silver within the bounds of Nevada. But these places were far from civilization. It was determined therefore to build a railroad through this vast mountainous region at the nation's expense. The work was begun in 1862. Two companies were chartered, the Union Pacific to build westward from Omaha, and the Central Pacific to build eastward from Sacramento. On the 10th of May, 1869, the two companies met at a point in Utah, the last rail was laid with impressive ceremony, and the great work was completed.

Pacific
Railway.

More than $27,000,000 had been given by the government to each of these companies, and they received, in addition, every odd section of land in a strip twenty miles wide along the entire route. This land grant came to give great dissatisfaction to a large portion of the people of the country, and was for many years a disturbing element. The building of the Pacific Railroad occasioned, a few 1 See 7 Wall. 700.

2 See McPherson's "Hand-Book for 1871-1872," p. 53.

STRAINED RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND

819

years later, one of the greatest scandals in the history of Congress, known as the Crédit Mobilier case.

Soon after Grant became President he conceived the project of annexing the Dominican Republic, comprising the eastern portion of the island of San Domingo, to the United States. But the scheme was opposed by most of the leading statesmen of the party, and it came to naught. In the light of these later days, since we have acquired West Indian possessions, greater wisdom must be accorded General Grant's views than was accorded them at the time. The President's views remained unchanged in regard to San Domingo, and he referred to it again in his last message to Congress. One effect of the matter was a complete alienation between him and Senator Sumner, who had led the opposition to annexation. They were henceforth personal enemies.1

THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON

In our foreign relations the chief legacy of the war was the unsettled dispute with Great Britain concerning the depredations of the reckless Alabama and her reckless sisters. Mr. Charles Francis Adams, our minister at London, protested from the beginning against the building of Confederate cruisers in English waters, and in 1865 he made to Earl Russell an official statement of the number and tonnage of the United States vessels transferred to the British flag on account of the depredations of the southern cruisers. The earl answered in the following decisive language: "Her Majesty's government must decline either to make reparation and compensation for the captures made by the Alabama, or to refer the question to any foreign state." Secretary Seward some time later sent a list of the claims for which the British government would be held responsible. The British government still refused to be moved; but when, in 1868, Mr. Adams's successor concluded a treaty with that government which ignored the Alabama claims, providing only for a commission to settle private claims of both countries, and that treaty was rejected by the United States Senate by an almost unanimous vote, the English public began to awaken to the fact that there was something serious between the two nations. Senator Sumner had made a most radical speech, in which he put forth the

1 Sumner was in the end greatly humiliated by being removed, through Grant's influence, from the head of the Senate committee on foreign affairs, and by the recall of his personal friend, John Lothrop Motley, from the post as minister to England.

most extravagant claims. He contended that England was responsi ble not only for the destruction of our shipping, but for our loss in the carrying trade, and even for the prolongation of the war occasioned by the early recognition of the belligerent rights of the South by the British queen. According to Sumner's rating, the British government should pay to the United States some hundreds of millions of dollars.

General Grant, who had now become President, gave no countenance to the preposterous claims of Sumner; but with the more moderate claim of damages for the destruction of our shipping he was in full sympathy. In his annual message of 1870 he recommended that the government assume and pay these claims of American citizens against England, and thus raise the affair to the dignity of a purely international one. The message made a profound impression in England, and moved the Ministry to speedy action. Some weeks later the English minister at Washington, Sir Edward Thornton, proposed a Joint High Commission to sit at Washington and discuss pending questions. The offer was accepted and this commission, composed of men of the highest standing in the two countries, began its sittings early in March, 1871.1

For two reasons the British were now anxious for an early settlement to preclude all danger of hostilities with the United States, and, as Lord Granville said in the House of Lords, to prepare for "possible complications in Europe" that might arise from the Franco-Prussian War. If England had become embroiled in a European war with the Alabama claims unsettled, she could hardly have expected the United States to take the trouble to prevent the building and fitting out in American waters of vessels hostile to her.

The Joint High Commission labored for two months and brought forth the Treaty of Washington, which was ratified by the Senate in May, by the British government in June, and was Joint High proclaimed in force by President Grant on the 4th of Commission. July. The treaty provided not only for the settlement of the Alabama Claims, but also for the settlement of the northwestern boundary of the United States which had been but vaguely

1 The United States was represented by Hamilton Fish, secretary of state; Robert C. Schenck, minister to England; Samuel Nelson, E. R. Hoar, and G. H. Williams. Great Britain was represented by Earl de Grey and Ripon, Sir Stafford Northcote, Sir Edward Thornton, Sir John A. Macdonald, and Professor Bernard, who held the chair of international law at Oxford.

THE ALABAMA CLAIMS

821

defined in the Treaty of 1847, and for the claims of Canada against the United States concerning the fisheries. The Alabama claims were to be decided by a tribunal of five men to meet at Geneva, Switzerland, the fisheries dispute by a commission to meet at Halifax, and the boundary between the United States and British Columbia was to be referred to the Emperor of Germany.

Of the five men who were to form the Court of Arbitration at Geneva, one each was to be appointed by the President of the United States, the Queen of England, the King of Italy, the Emperor of Brazil, and the President of the Swiss Republic. President Grant appointed Charles Francis Adams, Queen Victoria appointed Sir Alexander Cockburn, lord chief justice of England, the King of Italy named Count Sclopis, whose reputation as a jurist and a man of letters extended throughout Europe, while the Emperor of Brazil appointed the Viscount d'Itajubá, and the Swiss President chose Jacques Staempfli. These men were all of great eminence. They began their sittings on December 15, 1871. The claims at first put forth by the agent of the United States were very extravagant, and included the "indirect claims" for consequential damages, such as Mr. Sumner had advanced in his Senate speech. Mr. Gladstone declared that the "indirect claims" did not come within the tribunal's jurisdiction, and the whole British press broke out fiercely against the American proposal. While the two nations were in a furor of excitement over the matter, the Geneva tribunal ended the suspense by deciding in favor of the British view, namely, that only the claims for actual destruction of property by English-built Confederate cruisers could be considered.

Geneva

award.

The real work of the tribunal continued for many months, and was not completed until the following September. The decision. was that the British government had failed to use due diligence in the performance of its neutral obligations, and that it pay the United States the sum of $15,500,000 in gold. The only negative vote cast was that of Chief Justice Cockburn, who refused also to sign the article when it was completed The British public was greatly displeased with the verdict; but the Ministry accepted it, and the troublesome question was settled. The Americans rejoiced, not on account of the money to be paid, but over the moral victory, as the verdict pronounced England in the wrong throughout the long controversy. This Alabama Affair has

1 See McPherson's "Hand-Book," p. 87.

been pronounced the most unfortunate blunder in the history of the British Monarchy.1

The decision of the German Emperor with regard to the boundary dispute in the Northwest was in favor of the United States, giving us a group of small islands that had been claimed by both countries. This left the United States, for the first time after the close of the Revolution, as stated by President Grant, without a boundary dispute with Great Britain.

THE LIBERAL REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT

No party was ever founded on purer motives than was the Republican party, and no President ever entered on the great office with nobler intentions than did General Grant. But no party can long have a monopoly of government without the rise of demagogues and corruptionists within its ranks. Especially is this true at a time of great social upheaval like civil war, when offices are multiplied and when the opposing rival becomes so weak that its protesting voice can be heard but faintly. The Republican party proved no exception to the rule. Its achievements during the first years of its power were great. It had left a record in American annals that cannot be effaced, but the cankerworm had begun its work. The political jobber had gained his seat in the inner councils of the nation; and now, to his great advantage, the people had chosen a President who, though a true soldier, was, like Zachary Taylor, only a soldier, a President who wanted the knowledge and capacity for administration, who was honest too honest to suspect and watch the dishonest man. Before the close of Grant's first term there was widespread demoralization in high government circles. Few if any suspected Grant of conniving at wrong doing, but many believed that his simplicity of nature, his want of capacity to curb the wily politician in search of plunder, was the chief obstacle to good government. The Force Bill, which practically suspended civil government in parts of the South, also helped to cause a reaction in the North; and a very respectable element in the Republican party opposed the renomination of Grant for a second term. In this class of anti-Grant Republicans we find such leaders as Seward, Greeley, and Charles A. Dana of New York; Lyman Trumbull and David Davis of Illi

1 The Nation, Vol. XIV, p. 84.

2 The fisheries question was not disposed of for some years after this. It will be noticed later.