and foreign ministers, who had violated their oath to support the Constitution. This left a very small number, comparatively, to pay the penalty of rebellion, and completed, as far as legislation could complete, the work of reconstruction.

Financial

The public debt did not reach its full proportions adminis- until some time after the close of the war. Many tration. doubted the power, many more doubted the will, of the nation to bear so heavy a burden, without attempting to lighten it at the expense of those to whom it was due. It was, therefore, a great relief when the House of Representatives, on the day after it assembled in December, 1865, voted, one hundred and sixty-two to one, that the public debt is sacred and inviolable, and that any attempt to impair it shall be promptly rejected. But the difficulty of wisely administering the national finances was very great. The best measures involved immediate sacrifices, which financiers, public and private, were unwilling to make. Taxation was a trouble that could be remedied by means of reductions and improvements, until an easier system was established. The debt could be diminished by paying off instalments from the surplus revenue. But the paper money, which constituted the only currency, and which affected all prices and all habits of living throughout the country, could not be redeemed, or even brought near to redemption, without some temporary losses; and these were too great for the moral force of the government, as for that of the nation. The financial administration of seven years of peace left the people almost as far from a sound financial condition as it found them.

Civil

One administrative reform was begun upon. service. Congress authorized the president to prescribe such rules and regulations for the admission of persons into the civil service as would promote its efficiency, (March, 1871.)

The president appointed a commission, and received from them a scheme of rules which he communicated to Congress, (December.) That body was disposed to be inactive. The civil service, as it stood, was at congresssional disposal; its offices were filled or vacated, generally speaking, according to the demands of members of Congress, each managing his own locality, or claiming his share in general appointments. This patronage would cease with the reform of the civil service; delay in reforming it was therefore inevitable. The commission recommended the competitive examination of candidates for office, and the probationary appointment of those who succeeded at examination, together with securities for the tenure and promotion of deserving officers. It was a system vitally needed.

Another great reform was carried farther. It Indians. was the president's planning and the president's doing. He brought it forward in his inaugural address, (March, 1869,) and followed it up by active measures. A board of commissioners was created to take supervision of the Indians. In place of the agents hitherto appointed, officers of the army and persons nominated by different religious societies were intrusted with a charge which had been long abused. Some reservations were placed entirely under the immediate control of the Society of Friends and other bodies which had sent missionaries among the Indians. "I have attempted," said President Grant, a new policy towards these wards of the nation with fair results so far as tried." Indian hostilities did not cease. They had broken out during the civil war, and after its close. They broke out again after the new policy was tried. But with this policy there came a hope, that had not come before, of winning over the Indians to civilization and

peace.

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Mexico

and France.

In turning to foreign relations, we go back to the Johnson administration. Early in 1866, Mr. Seward wrote to the French minister at Washington, reminding him that the United States desired the withdrawal of the French troops from Mexico. As the Emperor Napoleon was weary of keeping them there, he not unwillingly promised to withdraw them, and, after making some changes in his plan, finally executed it in the first months of 1867. It was the strongest assertion of the Monroe Doctrine that had been made by our government; hardly a stronger one could be made.

Alaska

On the 30th of March, 1867, a treaty with Rusand Rus- sia transferred Alaska from that power to the sia. United States, on the payment of a little more than seven millions. This great territory, though nominally colonized for nearly a century, contained less than five hundred Russians and Siberians in a total population of twentynine thousand. It can hardly be said to have a history. The first Russians to reach it came in 1731; the first to explore it came in 1741, under Behring, who soon died on the island named after him. Voyages led to trading-posts and the establishment of Russian companies for the prosecution of the fur trade, in which American merchants and seamen also engaged. There was little besides the fur trade to characterize the territory, or to render it a desirable acquisition, when it was transferred to General Rousseau, representing the United States, (October, 1867.) Alabama The claims of the United States against Great claims. Britain, for the depredations of the Alabama and other vessels in the confederate service, formed the subject of long-continued negotiations. A treaty was concluded with the British government by the American minister, Reverdy Johnson, at the beginning of 1869, but rejected by the United States Senate. Two years later,

the British minister at Washington proposed a joint high commission of the two governments to settle some questions concerning the North American fisheries, and other matters relating to the British Possessions. Mr. Fish, secretary of state, suggested the consideration of the Alabama claims by the same commission, and this was accepted. Accordingly five commissioners of each government, ten in all, met at Washington on the 27th of February, 1871, and on the 8th of May signed the treaty of Washington, which was ratified by the United States Senate on the 24th of May, and by both governments on the 17th of June. By this all the Alabama claims were referred to a tribunal of arbitration, consisting of five members, one named by the president, one by the queen, one by the king of Italy, one by the president of the Swiss Confederation, and one by the emperor of Brazil. For a basis of arbitration, three rules were laid down as binding a neutral to prevent, 1st, the equipment or departure of any vessel to carry on war against a friendly power; 2d, the use of its ports or waters as a base of naval operations, or for the renewal of supplies against a friendly power; and 3d, the violation of the foregoing obligations. Fur thermore, the British commissioners were authorized to express regret for the escape of the Alabama and other vessels from British ports, and for the depredations committed by those vessels. As to other claims between the two governments, or their subjects or citizens, the treaty referred them to a commission of three members, one appointed by Great Britain, one by the United States, and one by both powers, to sit at Washington. This was a great advance upon all previous negotiations, and as the negotiators announced, "the method of adjustment is such as will set a noble example to other governments in the interest of the peace of the world." In December, 1871,

the board of arbitration met at Geneva, in Switzerland, the United States being represented by Charles Francis Adams, who had served as minister to Great Britain for seven years from the beginning of the civil war. At this meeting the American and British cases were presented, and the arbitrators then adjourned, to re-assemble in June, 1872. Before that date, the treaty and the tribunal both came very near dissolution. A paragraph was found in the American case urging what was known as the indirect claims, or, as they were vaguely understood, the liability of Great Britain for all the expenses of the civil war after the battle of Gettysburg; because, after that, as was alleged, the offensive operations of the insurgents were conducted only at sea through the cruisers, and the war was prolonged for that purpose. Happily, the indignation excited by these suggestions in England was not sustained by any support to them from the American people, who had little mind to follow up such claims. The board of arbitration met on the 15th of June, 1872, and on the 28th set the indirect claims aside. On the 14th of September they their decision, the British arbitrator dissenting, gave that Great Britain should pay fifteen and a half million dollars as indemnity to the United States. In this decision the two governments and the two nations acquiesced.

Settle

Abroad and at home, the immediate consequences ment. of the war were now settled. Legislation and negotiation had rendered the reunion of the American people possible. Only the virtue of the people themselves could render it real.

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