Alabama Claims
The Alabama Claims were a series of demands for damages sought by the government of the United States from the United Kingdom in 1869, for the attacks upon Union merchant ships by Confederate Navy commerce raiders built in British shipyards during the American Civil War. The claims focused chiefly on the most famous of these raiders, the CSS Alabama, which took more than sixty prizes before she was sunk off the French coast in 1864.
After
British political involvement
The
Though both the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary were thought to favor the Confederacy at the time of Alabama's construction, British public opinion was divided on the issue, and MPs such as Richard Cobden campaigned against it. The subsequent departure of the Alabama proved to be publicly embarrassing, and Palmerston and Russell were later forced to admit that the ship should not have been allowed to depart. The Government had requested advice from the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Sir Alexander Cockburn, who ruled that her release did not violate Britain's neutrality, because she was not outfitted with guns at the time that she left British ports.[1]
In the next year, Britain detained two
The claims
In what were called the Alabama Claims, in 1869 the United States claimed direct and collateral damage against Great Britain. In the particular case of the Alabama, the United States claimed that Britain had violated neutrality by allowing five warships to be constructed, especially the Alabama, knowing that it would eventually enter into naval service with the Confederacy.
Other particulars included the following: In the summer of 1862, the British-built steam warship Oreto was delivered to
Other warships included the CSS Shenandoah (built at Alexander Stephen and Sons in Glasgow), CSS Lark (built at John Laird and Sons, like the Alabama), and CSS Tallahassee (built at J & W Dudgeon in London).
Senator
Payment
Sumner originally asked for $2 billion in damages, or alternatively, the ceding of
The idea reached a peak in the spring and summer of 1870, with American expansionists, Canadian separatists, and British anti-imperialists seemingly combining forces. The plan was dropped for several reasons: London continued to stall, American commercial and financial groups pressed Washington for a quick settlement of the dispute in cash,
Treaty of Washington
In 1871,
The tribunal
The tribunal was composed of representatives:
- Britain: Sir Alexander Cockburn
- United States: William Maxwell Evarts serving as counsel[12]
- Italy: Federico Sclopis
- Switzerland: Jakob Stämpfli
- Brazil: Marcos Antônio de Araújo, 2nd Baron of Itajubá.
Negotiations had taken place in Suitland, Maryland, at the estate of businessman Samuel Taylor Suit. The tribunal session was held in a reception room of the Town Hall in Geneva, Switzerland. This has been named salle de l'Alabama.
The final award of $15,500,000 formed part of the Treaty of Washington and was paid out by Great Britain in 1872. This was balanced against damages of $1,929,819 paid by the United States to Great Britain for illegal Union blockade practices and ceded fishing privileges.[13]
Legacy
This established the principle of international
According to Vladimir Nabokov, the core incident has a legacy in literary reference, being used as a plot device in Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy. In one early passage, Stiva Oblonsky has a dream that may show his having read of the Alabama Claims through the Kölnische Zeitung.[18] And in the Jules Verne novel Around the World in Eighty Days Inspector Fix warns Phileas Fogg that the riot they encounter in San Francisco may be connected to the claim.[19]
See also
- Prize (law)
- Blockade runners of the American Civil War
- The Great Rapprochement
References
- ^ Hansard. The Foreign Enlistment Act- Question, March 27, 1863. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1863/mar/27/united-states-the-foreign-enlistment-act
- ^ Kenneth M.. Startup, "'This Small Act of Courtesy:' Admiral Sir George Willes Watson, Trouble, Trials, and Turmoil in Bahama Waters," Journal of the Bahamas Historical Society, October 2009, Vol. 31, pp. 57–62.
- ^ John W. Dwinelle (1870). American Opinions on the "Alabama," and other political questions. pp. 37–39.
- ISBN 9-7810-0050-8772.
- ^ David Keys (June 24, 2014). "Historians reveal secrets of UK gun-running which lengthened the American civil war by two years". The Independent.
- ^ Paul Hendren (April 1933). "The Confederate Blockade Runners". United States Naval Institute.
- ^ Doris W. Dashew, "The Story of an Illusion: The Plan to Trade Alabama Claims for Canada," Civil War History, December 1969, Vol. 15 Issue 4, pp. 332–348
- ^ David E. Shi, "Seward's Attempt to Annex British Columbia, 1865–1869", Pacific Historical Review, May 1978, Vol. 47 Issue 2, pp. 217–238.
- ISBN 0-684-84927-5. pp. 510, 511.
- ^ Smith (2001), 512–514.
- ^ Smith (2001), 512–515.
- ^ "EVARTS, William Maxwell - Biographical Information". bioguide.congress.gov.
- ^ Thomas A. Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People, NY (1958), 6th ed., pp. 388–389.
- S2CID 233610373.
- ^ Cook (1975)
- ISBN 9780226680101.
- JSTOR 20028203.
- ISBN 0151495998.
- ^ Verne, Jules (1872). Around the World in Eighty Days.[page needed]
Bibliography
- Adams, E. D. (1924). Great Britain and the American Civil War. New York: Russell & Russell. (see external links)
- Balch, T. W. (1900). The Alabama Arbitration. Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott.
- ISBN 1-4181-2980-1
- ISBN 978-0-19-969730-4.
- Blegen, Theodore C. "A Plan for the Union of British North America and the United States, 1866." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 4.4 (1918): 470-483 online.
- Bowen, C. S. C. (1868). The Alabama Claims and Arbitration Considered from a Legal Point of View. London.
- Cook, Adrian. (1975). The Alabama Claims. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801408939., the standard scholarly history
- deKay, T. (2003). The Rebel Raiders: The Warship "Alabama", British Treachery and the American Civil War. London: Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-6490-4.
Further reading
- "The United States," The Times, September 23, 1873, 8d.
External links
- Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921. .
- Geneva Arbitration, 1872 (in English and French)
- Cartoons from Harper's Weekly:
- "John Bull's Neutrality", November 1, 1862
- "King Andy", November 3, 1866. Note that the medallion worn by Secretary of the Navy Gideon Wellesis engraved with the number "290", the original dockyard number for the Alabama.
- "The Apple of Discord at the Geneva Convention", October 5, 1872
- "Columbia Lays Aside her Laurels", November 9, 1872. Note that the "laurels" laid aside are those won at the Geneva arbitration.
- Great Britain and the American Civil War Op. cit. at Project Gutenberg
- La salle de l'Alabama in the Hotel de Ville, Geneva (in French)
- Edwin H. Abbott Papers, W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, University of Alabama