r
departments, beginning with the Secretary of State. Should he die, be
impeached, or disabled, the Secretary of the Treasury would become
President, to be followed in like crisis by the Secretary of War, he by
the Attorney-General, he by the Postmaster-General, he by the Secretary
of the Navy, he by the Secretary of the Interior, and he by the
Secretary of Agriculture.

We have still no legal or official criterion of a President's
disability. We do not know whether, during Garfield's illness, for
instance--apparently a clear case of disability--it was proper for his
cabinet to perform his presidential duties, or whether Arthur should not
have assumed these. Barring this chance for conflict, it is not easy to
think of an emergency in which the chief magistracy can now fall vacant,
or the appropriate incumbent thereof be in doubt.

CHAPTER II.

THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON

[1871]

The year 1871 was marked by the conclusion of an important treaty
between England and the United States. Besides settling certain
questions which threatened the friendly relations of the two countries,
the treaty enunciated important principles of international law, and
afforded the world a shining instance of peaceful arbitration as a
substitute for the horrors of war.

Ever since 1863 the United States had been seeking satisfaction from
Great Britain for the depredations committed by the Alabama and other
Confederate cruisers sailing from English ports. Negotiations were
broken off in 1865 and again in 1868. The next year Reverdy Johnson,
American Minister to England, negotiated a treaty, but it was rejected
by the Senate. In January, 1871, the British Government proposed a
joint commission for the settlement of questions connected with the
Canadian fisheries. Mr. Fish, our Secretary of State, replied that the
settlement of the "Alabama Claims" would be "essential to the
restoration of cordial and amicable relations between the two
governments." England consented to submit this question also to the
commission, and on February 27th five high commissioners from each
country met at Washington. The British delegation included cabinet
officers, the minister to the United States, and an Oxford professor of
international law. The American commissioners were of equally high
station, the Secretary of State, an associate justice of the Supreme
Court, and our minister to England being of their number.

On May 8th the commission completed a t