Pacific Railway.-The Fifteenth Amendment.-Death of General Lee. -State Rights Influence.-Alabama Claims.-Census of 1870.Election Law.-The Centennial.-Presidential Election.-Influences binding the Union.-Conclusion.-Progress.-Agricultural Products.-Immigrants.-The Effect of Cheap Lands.-Homestead Settlers.-Public School Funds.-Illiteracy of States Compared.-Newspapers.-Public Libraries.-Art.-Benevolent Associations.-Individual Responsibility.-English Language, Influence of.-Christianized Civilization. LXV. Mar. 4. WHEN Ulysses S. Grant entered upon the office of Presi- CHAP. dent the civil war had been concluded about four years; the direful effects on the South had been rapidly disappear- 1869. ing; all the States, by means of reconstruction, were once more under the old flag, and the nation had already entered upon a career of progress untrammeled by the incumbrance of slavery to retard advancement and to serve as an irritating element, as it had been for two generations. The President appointed ex-Governor Hamilton Fish, of New York, Secretary of State. During this year the Pacific Railroad, extending from Omaha, Neb., to San Francisco, 1,913 miles, was finished; it supplied the link uniting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. This was a work of great magnitude-entered upon in time of civil war, but pressed to the end by, untiring energy. The United States aided in building this road by liberal grants of public lands and otherwise. The Fifteenth Amendment, which reads, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account 1870. Mar of color or previous condition of servitude," was adopted, 30. and became the law of the land. This completed the СНАР. 1870. CHAP amendments to the Constitution deemed necessary for the protection of the freedmen in their new relation as citizens. They have manifold difficulties to overcome, but their progress in industry and their endeavor to educate themselves and their children, and to acquire frugal habits, are the cheering features in their case. Too much, unfortunately, has been expected of them as citizens. The degradation of their previous condition has not produced that self-respect so necessary to success in life, and it will take time, and both moral and intellectual improvement, to obliterate the effects of such an influence. A feeling of kindness between the former masters and the freedmen is increasing from year to year, and as the industries of the late slaveholding States increase and their resources develop, the latter, as laborers at least, will doubtless perform their share in this general progress. 1875. 1870. 12. "Now," wrote Vice-President Wilson, "the colored race, though little accustomed to habits of economy and thrift, possess millions of property, has hundreds of thousands of children in schools, has been clothed with civil and political rights, occupies high positions at home, and has representatives in Congress." General Robert E. Lee died October 12, 1870. He ad Oct. won for himself the respect of the people of the loyal States, and was the idol of those of his own section. He was a Christian and a gentleman; reserved in manner. but of the kindliest disposition. He was opposed to the secession leaders, and had but little respect for their statesmanship; looking upon them as only ambitious politicians. and that the war might have been avoided had it not been for that class in both sections. Says he, "I did believe at the time that it was an unnecessary condition of affairs, and might have been avoided if forbearance and wisdom had been practiced on both sides." He wrote, Jan. 6th, 1861, "I cannot anticipate so great a calamity to the nation as the dissolution of the Union." When the war was over he accepted the situation, and used his influence DEATH OF GENERAL LEE- -STATE RIGHTS INFLUENCE. LXIV. 1870. 973 for the reconciliation of the North and South. He was CHAP. elected president of Washington College in his native State, in which important and useful office he spent the remainder of his life; and there used all his influence to direct the young men to become Christians and good citizens, and true lovers of the whole country. A mother brought her two sons to enter the college, and in his presence loudly expressed her hatred of the North; the dignified president, interrupting her, said, "Madam, don't bring up your sons to detest the United States government. Recollect that we form but one country now; abandon all these local animosities, and make your sons Americans." He foresaw the ruin of his own Virginia in case of a civil war, and it was through agonies of spirit that he decided to go with her. "My husband has wept tears of blood," Mrs. Lee wrote to a friend, "over this terrible war; but he must, as a man and a Virginian, share the destiny of his State, which has solemnly pronounced for independence. His decision, no doubt, was owing much to the insidious influence of the extreme views taken of the doctrine of State Rights, which poisoned the minds of many of the Southern statesmen of that period to such an extent as to cramp their political ideas. They were so much engaged in plans of special legislation for their own section and "the peculiar institution," that their statesmanship was dwarfed; in consequence their views of policy were more sectional than national; never grasping the whole land in its diversities of climate and manifold industries and, institutions. Governments, in theory at least, have been formed to last for all time, and these leaders betrayed their want of true statesmanship when in their Constitution they embodied the doctrine of State Rights to such an extent as to provide, in the very organization of their government, for its own dissolution-the only instance known to history of such inconsistency. During the rebellion and at its close the loyal people and 1 Life of Lee, p. 331. CHAP. 1870. LXVI. Congress felt keenly indignant that the English rulers should have given aid to the Confederates and manifested so much sympathy for their cause. "We charged and believed that Great Britain and her colonies had been the arsenal, the navy-yard, and the treasury of the Confederacy." But "with generous forbearance" the United States Government chose to obtain redress by negotiation, and a treaty was made, the Earl of Clarendon acting on the part of the English Government and Hon. Reverdy Johnson, an eminent lawyer, acting on the part of the United States. Senator Charles Sumner made a scathing analysis of this treaty when it came before the Senate for ratification, and it was rejected. His argument and the rejection irritated the English people exceedingly; but time and reflection revealed to them that Sumner's statements were so clear and so true that the United States had just reason to complain of England's lack of good faith as a neutral, and they began to sincerely regret there should be differences of an unfriendly character between the two nations of all others so nearly related, which feeling came now to be reciprocated by the people of the United States. General Grant, soon after the rejection of the treaty, became President, and he recommended to Congress to appoint a commission to audit the claims of American citizens on Great Britain for losses by Confederate cruisers permitted to leave English ports to prey on American commerce, in order to have them assumed by the government itself. Soon after this the English government proposed to 1871. that of the United States a joint High Commission, to hold Jan. its sessions at Washington, to settle some questions in 26. respect to boundaries between the two countries. The President consented on condition that the Alabama claims, so-called, should also be considered. This led to the second treaty of Washington (the first in 1842).' Five CommisMay sioners were sent by the British Government, men of emi8. nence, who met the same number, of equal character, 1 Hist., pp. 681-83. ENGLISH CRUISERS-TREATY OF WASHINGTON. 975 LXVI. 1871. appointed by the President. This treaty, from the prin- CHAP. ciples involved in its action, is a noble example of nations settling their controversies by negotiation, and the arbitration of justice and reason, rather than by the barbarous arbitrament of the sword. The Commissioners made their work complete. By authority of the Queen the British negotiators expressed in a friendly spirit the regret felt by Her Majesty's Government for the escape, under July whatever circumstances, of the Alabama and other vessels" —there were eighteen, including tenders-from British ports and for depredations committed by them. There were in all five different subjects of controversy between the two nations, and the treaty arranged that these should be submitted to disinterested arbitrators whose award both nations were bound by agreement to accept as final. The points at issue were the claims of American citizens against Great Britain for damages sustained by cruisers fitted out in British ports to aid the Confederates in making war against the United States, and all claims of the citizens of either Government for injuries received during the civil war; also for the regulation of the Atlantic coast fisheries of the United States and of the British provinces touching on the Atlantic and its estuaries; and for the free navigation of the St. Lawrence and certain canals in the Canadian Dominion; and in the United States for the free navigation of Lake Michigan, and also for reciprocal free transit across the territory either of the United States or of the Canadian Dominion; and, finally, the true boundary between Washington Territory and British Columbia, which had been postponed to a future time. by Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton when they negotiated the first treaty of Washington. As long as Lord John Russell, through whose negligence the Alabama and other vessels were permitted to escape, had charge of the foreign affairs of Great Britain no redress could be obtained. Though admitting the wrong, he stubbornly refused to make any concession, on 4. |