Ebook The Confederate Debt and Private Southern Debts

In consequence of the hostile action taken by the Confederate States against the United States, the blockade of the Southern ports was instituted on 19th April, 1861, and on 13th May the British Government issued a Proclamation of Neutrality in which the Confederate States were recognised as belligerents. This recognition as belligerents was inevitable as soon as the United States declared their intention of establishing a blockade, not with the view of Foreign Powers deciding anything as between the belligerents themselves, but as declaring that a state of hostilities had arisen of which it was essential that the citizens of neutral nations should be informed, and that the conduct to be observed by them and the risks to which they would be liable, might be duly made known on the authority of their respective Governments. The Confederate States, it must be observed, were simply provinces in rebellion against the lawfully constituted authority of the United States, and had none Of the international status of an independent nation. If they had been an independent power at war with another independent power, their status would have been totally difierent from what it could possibly be as belligerents without the previous condition of independence. So far, therefore, as the British and other Foreign Governments had a posi tive duty to, perform, it was to protect the interests of their own citizens by recognising the Confederates as belligerents and by giving warning that trade with the ports of the Confederate States was suspended, and that vessels attempting to enter or leave these ports were liable to seizure and the ships andcargoes to confiscation. The recognition as belligerents was an act of imme diate necessity in consequence of the declaration of blockade, but the strenuous attempts Of' the Confederate States to obtain from the. European Powers their recognition as an independent state, entirely failed. If the European Powers had recognised their independence while war was still going on, and the ultimate issue still undecided, this recognition would not have been of any benefit to, the Bondholders, as the fact that the Confederate States had neverbeen independent of the United States, and did not become so, would have justified the United States in complaining that the European Powers had done them a grievous wrong in recognising as existing in the Confederate States an independent status which, at the time of recognition, did not exist, and as a matter of fact did not afterwards come into existence.