nited States had been protesting against the unfriendly course of
Great Britain, against her premature recognition of the Confederate
States as belligerents, against her special concession of ocean
belligerency, against her making the dockyards and arsenals on her
own soil the dockyards and arsenals of the Confederacy, against her
wilful depredation upon the commerce of the United States, against the
destruction of property belonging to American citizens by her agency
and her fault. And now Mr. Johnson and Lord Clarendon had concluded
a treaty which practically admitted that the complaints of the United
States, as a government, against the conduct of Great Britain, as a
government, had been mere rant and bravado on the part of the United
States, and were not to be insisted on before any International
tribunal, but to be merged in an ordinary claims convention, by whose
award a certain amount in dollars and cents might be paid to the
American claimants and a certain amount in pounds, shillings, and pence
might be paid to British claimants. The text of the treaty did not
indicate in any manner whatever that either nation was more at fault
than the other touching the matters to be arbitrated.

The treaty had short life in the Senate. The Committee of Foreign
Relations, after examination of its provisions, reported that it
should "be rejected." Mr. Sumner, who made the report, said it was
the first time since he had entered the Senate that such a report had
been made concerning any treaty. Amendments, he said, were sometimes
suggested, and sometimes a treaty had been reported without any
recommendations; but the hostility to the entire spirit and to every
detail of the Johnson-Clarendon treaty was so intense that the
Committee had made the positive recommendation that it be rejected.
This action was taken in the month of April, 1869, a few weeks after
President Grant had entered upon his office. It was accompanied by a
speech from Mr. Sumner, made in Executive session, but by direction
of the Senate given to the public, in which the reasons for the action
of the Senate were stated with great directness, precision and force.

After enumerating the extent of our losses, National and individual,
direct and indirect, Mr. Sumner said: "If the case against England is
strong, and if our claims are unprecedented in magnitude, it is only
because the conduct of that power at a trying period was most
unfriendly, and the injurio