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A
DIPLOMATIC EPISODE.
THE REJECTED TREATY FOR ST. THOMAS.
BY
EDWARD L. PIERCE.
//


BOSTON:
1889.


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L:
A DIPLOMATIC FIASCO.
SoME time ago Scribner's Magazine contained a paper entitled
"A Diplomatic Episode," by Miss Olive Risley Seward, which
undertakes to narrate the negotiations with Denmark for the
purchase of the islands of St. Thomas and St. John in 1866 -1869 by Mr. Seward (then Secretary of State), and the connection of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs (Mr. Sumner
being chairman) with its consideration and failure of ratification.
With many words, the introduction of superfluous incidents and
assertions of facts not verified by reference to sources, she gives an
air of mystery to what was a plain transaction and a very simple
question. A map is inserted, as if to produce an optical illusion,
on which a number of straight lines converge to St. Thomas as a
common centre of islands, continents and commercial marts, just
as all roads once led to Rome. Among the statesmen of the time
no one except Mr. Seward thought the island worth having at any
price, or being taken as a gift for any purpose of peace or war.
In a foreign war it would have been useless for offense and difficult of defense; and while, during the civil war, when the Confederates held most of our Southern Atlantic coast, one of the Antilles would have served a purpose as a coaling and supply station,
it is no part of national duty to make military preparation for civil
war, certainly not a part of ours with the nation consolidated by
the abolition of slavery.
Impartial authorities describe St. Thomas as exposed to hurricanes passing once in twenty years over it and doing great damage; with very frequent earthquakes coming with serious shocks
at intervals; with often recurring droughts; with no running
stream and only one small spring, the only resource for fresh
water being the storing of rain; its only present productions "a
few vegetables, a little fruit and some guinea grass," insufficient




2
for one-twentieth of its inhabitants; its population "one-tenth
white, two-thirds black and the remainder mixed;" its utility
for commercial purposes dwindling from year to year, and its imports falling off one-half from 1870 to 1880; abandoned as a rendezvous by the British Mail Company in 1885, with other important lines following its example. From the end of our civil war,
during which its trade had a temporary stimulus, its descent in
importance has been constant. ["American Cyclopaedia," "Encyclopaedia Britannica," article "St. Thomas."]  This is the
prize which Mr. Seward won for us, but which was lost by the
mysterious indifference and perversity of all the statesmen of his
time! Of St. John little need be said here, as scarcely anything
was said of it during the discussion. In extent it is somewhat
larger than St. Thomas, but so unattractive and repelling that it
was "an almost abandoned island" (C. H. Bithome to Mr. Seward, May 13, 1867). Providence, as if to save us from a wild
venture, gave in the midst of the negotiations a triple warning by
an earthquake, a tidal wave, and a hurricane, in quick succession.
Ours, too, is a country of the temperate zone, and the aspirations of its people are continental. There has been among us a
healthy resistance to going further southward than we have now
reached, or seeking islands either in the Atlantic or the Pacific;
an instinctive reluctance, as shown in the later case of St. Domingo, to enter on a career of tropical extension, with dangers and
embarrassments to free institutions which could not be measured
in advance.
It is not difficult, since the recent astounding revelations of
Mr. Lincoln's biographers, to comprehend the wildness with which
Mr. Seward entered on this extra-territorial scheme. It now appears
that he was hardly warm in his seat as Secretary, when, with a civil
conflict of tremendous import at hand, he proposed to the President
to rush madly into a war with France and Spain, and nominated
himself for dictator! The patriot of to-day cannot value too
highly the wise instinot of the American people which at Chicago
in 1860 preferred Lincoln to Seward. It is now apparent why
the good President, though he kept his own counsel, leaned afterwards rather on Mr. Sumner than on his Secretary when foreign
questions were pending. The admirers of Mr. Seward have a new
task of apology and defense quite enough to exhaust their ingenuity.




3
The underlying thought of "A Diplomatic Episode" is that
the Senate of the United States in withholding assent to Mr. Seward's negotiation put our country in the position of acting in bad
faith to Denmark.  This contention has no basis in fact, or political ethics. The Constitution of the United States, of which
all the world in doing business with us must take notice, confers
on the President " power by and with the advice and consent of
the Senate to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators
present concur."  It confides this great power, an incident of
sovereignty, to the President and Senate, each acting with an independent responsibility and discretion, neither having the right to
abdicate in favor of the other.  This discretion of the Senate has
been freely exercised in dealing with strong as well as with weak
nations; for instance, in the rejection of the Johnson-Clarendon
treaty on the one hand, and of the St. Domingo treaty on the
other. All publicists are agreed, among our own the authors of
the Federalist, as well as Story and Wheaton, that treaties bind
neither party in law or in honor, until finally ratified by all the
bodies in which the authority is placed by the constitution of the
State.
Whence comes this gloss on the Constitution that the treatyconsummating power is now wholly lodged in the Executive, and
that the Senate has lost its constitutional right of withholding its
advice and consent? If this notion were to prevail some future
Secretary, head of a bureau not established by the Constitution,
swaying some future Andrew Johnson, might carry our dominion
into Mexico, to the Isthmus, to the Amazon, even to Cape Horn,
to say nothing of countless islands; and the Senate, representing
sixty millions of people, would have to stand aloof in amazement,
shorn of all power to arrest the madness! Aside from its merits,
the fate of the St. Thomas treaty was of great advantage, in that
it established against a monstrous assumption of one-man power
the prerogative of the Senate to act on all treaties with absolute
freedom of judgment, unhampered by executive initiation and
pledges.
The purchase of Alaska from Russia is not analogous to the
attempt to acquire St. Thomas. In the one case the territory was
continental, in the other extra-continental and insular; in the one
case lying to the north, in the other tropical; the one bringing
wealth in fisheries and furs and fair climatic conditions, while the




4
other was without resources actual or undeveloped, and even subject to derangements of nature unparalleledwithin the same limited
space; the one checkmating the colonial empire of Great Britain
in the northwest, and opening the way to the dominion of the
continent which has been the thought of far-seeing statesmen
like Sumner and Cobden, while the other was to bring to us two
worthless islands of the size of a county, two of the thousand in
the Caribbean Sea, with a waste of money in peace and complications in war. Alaska exceeded half a million square miles and
the price was $7,200,000, while the bargain with Denmark called
for $7,500,000 for a meagre area of only seventy-five square
miles.
It is true that Mr. Sumner added to his main argument for
Alaska, made April 9, 1867, the consideration that " the dishonoring of the treaty," as he called it, at that stage would involve a
serious responsibility. But he was very careful to confine this
obiter dictum to the case in hand; and Miss Seward very deftly,
as well as abruptly, cuts short her quotation from his speech when
she reaches his emphatic exclusion of all other treaties from any
implied sanction. He went on to say that " had the Senate been
consulted in advance before the treaty was signed or either power publicly committed, as is often done on important occasions,*
it (the Senate) would be under less constraint," a clear intimation that this should be the practice in such cases. And then, to
make his caveat emphatic, he said, "Let me add that, while forbearing objection now, I hope that this treaty may not be drawn into
a precedent, at least in the independent manner of its negotiation. I would save to the Senate an important power justly belonging to it;" and, he added, " this treaty must not be a precedent for a system of indiscriminate and costly annexion."  He
also expressed his anxiety that our expansion should come from
natural processes, without war and even without purchase, the
latter to be justified only under peculiar circumstances. Mr.
Sumner in this caveat gave Mr. Seward and the Danish negotiator
timely warning as to the determination of the Senate to hold fast
to its constitutional prerogative, which they had no excuse not to
* Mr. Seward submitted in 1862, in advance, the draught of a convention
with Mexico for the assumption in part of her debt, and, the Senate advising
against it, the negotiation went no further.




5
keep in mind the following October when they made their definite arrangement.
No one knew this constitutional limitation better than General
Raasloff, the principal negotiator on the Danish side. He had
lived among us almost as a citizen when engaged in engineering
enterprises; and he had already represented his country in the
United States as Consul General and Minister. He wrote our
language without foreign idiom and spoke it almost without foreign
accent. He knew our polity as well as we know it ourselves.
Indeed, unlike the case of Russia, where the Czar holds the power
absolutely and exclusively without hindrance from any one, the
Constitution of Denmark contained a limitation analogous to that
of our own, making the treaty-consummating power dependent
on the decision of the Rigsdag. The treaty was itself explicit,
reserving, as conditions, ratification by our Senate and by the
Danish Rigsdag, and also by the islanders themselves. Rejection
by any one of the three would have involved no breach of faith.
It was natural that the Danish negotiator. whose personal
pride as well as whose party interests were at stake, should make
the point of good faith; but he labored hard in insisting upon it
when pressed before the Committee on Foreign Affairs by Mr.
Fessenden's question, "Would, in your opinion, the United
States have a right to complain if your Rigsdag had refused their
consent to the ratification of the St. Thomas treaty? "  His answer was that in that event the Rigsdag would have been dissolved, and a new election ordered; and then, if the new Rigsdag followed the action of its predecessor, the Cabinet itself
would have resigned. And this was all the satisfaction he could
suggest as possible; clearly none for a nation disappointed in a
bargain, and insisting on a point of good faith.  He thought,
too, that we should still have had the right to complain that his
government had trifled with us "in having neglected to secure
beforehand the ratification of the treaty,"-an intimation that
Mr. Seward should have made himself surer of his footing, and
have consulted the Senate in advance, as pointed out to be the
proper course by Mr. Sumner in his speech on the Alaska purchase.
Whatever color of justice there may have been in Denmark's
point of good faith came from Mr. Seward's unauthorized assurances that the enterprise was sure of approval in the Senate;




6
and according to the Washington correspondence at the time, the
Committee on Foreign Affairs at their hearing January 28, 1869,
thought them  to be "an egregious blunder" when General
Raasloff made them the basis of his appeal. Mr. Seward said to
the Danish negotiator, June 28, 1866. that " the Executive could
always count upon the assistance of Congress in matters of this
kind provided the proceedings had been correct;" and in other
communications gave the Danish Government to understand that
there need be no fear as to the ratification. Arguments in newspapers and pamphlets at the time put the case for ratification
chiefly on the ground that Mr. Seward had committed us to the
treaty by his ill-considered and precipitate action.  Raasloff's
intimate friends laid the blame of his misfortunes on Mr. Seward.
Mr. G.V. Fox,writing to Mr. Sumner, January 31, 1869, concerning
General Raasloff's appeal for his good offices to assist the treaty,
suggested that the Foreign Affairs' Committee invite his opinion,
and said, " This course seems to me the only one which enables
me to satisfy my friend, General Raasloff, that I have attempted
to aid him in the most unpleasant position in which Mr. Seward's
diplomacy has placed him.  I can see that there is no possibility
of success for him, and that the rejection is fatal to his future in
his own country."  Raasloff himself, writing to Mr. Sumner
January 12, 1869, and referring to the effect of the rejection on
his own career, speaks of himself as " having been more than
anybody else.(Mr. Seward, of course, excepted) instrumental in
bringing such a calamity and humiliation upon my country."
The parenthesis, which is his own, is significant.
The writer of the " Episode " insinuates that prejudice against
Seward as well as Johnson accounts for the want of welcome
which awaited the St. Thomas treaty in the Senate. It is unnecessary to resort to this theory, for the objections against the
treaty would have been equally fatal if it had been negotiated by
a Secretary and a President who were retaining the confidence of
the country. It is true that Mr. Seward had been "swinging
around the circle" with Mr. Johnson. He is understood also to
have been the originator of that fatal policy of the President
which revived the rebel spirit, disorganized the whole Southern
country, led to barbarous legislation against the colored race,
eventuated in riots, massacres and Ku-Klux raids, and postponed
for a decade the pacification of the restored States; consequences




7
which in charity we must believe he was not wise enough to foresee. He avowed himself openly its supporter, and historical
writers declare him to have been its author. The general disfavor into which he fell may have had something to do with producing the popular distrust of the Johnson-Clarendon negotiation; but it does not appear to have affected the convention with
Denmark. One thing is certain, that Mr. Sumner at no time prejudged Mr. Seward's diplomatic enterprises; but uniformly came
to their consideration with an open mind. They had parted
politically, bat the spell of an old friendship and common memories was still on Mr. Sumner, probabl; also on Mr. Seward.
Together they had fought the good fight of "the irrepressible
conflict." They had long enjoyed intimate fellowship in the Senate, never broken by antagonism or weakened by rivalry. They
had sat often at each other's table, and these household recognitions continued to the end of Mr. Seward's service in Washington.
Mr. Sumner had been at least once a guest at Auburn, where
another than Mr. Seward regarded him with almost motherly affection, addressing him. even by his Christian name. There had
been full sympathy between them in personal trials and sufferings,
and in bereavements, and also when each at different times was prostrated by the assassin. Each had a fascination in manner and
spirit which the other felt; and who, with large sympathies with
his kind, that has known either has not felt the same? On a day
in June, 1860, shortly after his loss of the nomination for President, I dined at Mr. Seward's house in Washington, with Sumner and Adams as the only other guests; and it was difficult to
keep back the tears as our host with profound disappointment
but in no unmanly way spoke of what had recently passed at Chicago. Between Mr. Seward and Mr. Sumner there were differences
in the treatment of public questions, sometimes temporary chafing
and soreness, particularly during Mr. Lincoln's administration,
when the President gave heed on important questions of foreign
policy to the Senator rather than to Mr. Seward, as with reference
to the issuing of letters of marque and reprisal, so that the latter
said impatiently, "there are too many Secretaries of State." But
never was Mr. Sumner inhospitable to Mr. Seward's plans or wishes,
even after the contest between Congress and President Johnson
had begun. As soon as Mr. Seward had negotiated the treaty
for Alaska, a few hours before it was signed, he sent for Mr. Sum



8
ner, March 29, 1867, to come to his house the same evening to
confer with him and the Russian minister concerning it. With
what vigor Mr. Sumner sustained that treaty is a part of history.
When shortly after its ratification I asked him how he came to
take so much interest in it, and to prepare so laborious a speech
in its defense, he stated several reasons of a public nature; but
first in order of time he gave Mr. Seward's earnest desire to carry
it through.
Mr. Sumner recognized always the duty of co-operating cordially with public officers with whom he might not at the time be
in political sympathy. He continued during Johnson's administration to call often at the State Department when Mr. Seward
was Secretary, and to keep himself informed as to its business and
needs, and in debates, even during the heats of the impeachment
controversy, contended so vigorously for Mr. Seward's recommendations as to clerical force and the contingent or secret service
fund as to invite the suggestion from some associates that
he was too much the partisan of that department.  Any one
curious in such matters may verify this statement by consulting
the Congressional Globe's reports for January 30 and 31, February
4 and 7, and June 22 and 23, 1868.
The " Episode" makes and reiterates against the Senate the
charge of delay in acting on the St. Thomas treaty, a charge which
lies against the negotiators rather than the Senate. More than three
years passed between January 1, 1865, when Mr. Seward opened
up the subject of the purchase to General Raasloff at Washington
and the time when the treaty and necessary papers were ripe for
the consideration of the Senate, The intervening period was
occupied with inaction on both sides, principally the Danish;
more or less skirmishing between the parties as to the government
from which the first offer of amount should come; prolonged
silence and inattention of the cabinet at Copenhagen after Mr.
Seward's first offer, which our minister at that court was unable to
break [Mr. Yeaman's letters to Mr. Seward, January 21, March 13,
April 27 and 30, and May 2, 1867]; finally, instead of an acceptance of Mr. Seward's offers one counter proposition and then
another; the Danish minister at Washington going home and
leaving no successor; the insistence of Denmark after the
price had been fixed on a vote of the islanders, which, in
view of what they were, could be of no significance, and




9
which involved vexatious questions and postponements, so that
thy treaty was not signed till October 24, 1867, and not submitted to the Senate till December, and the vote of the islanders' was not communicated till January 17, 1868.   Although
in December, 1867, when the treaty was referred, Mr. Sumner promptly requested the papers from the State Department, they were not forthcoming for seven weeks, and when
they had been printed and were available for use, the time
fixed by the treaty for ratification, February 24, 1868, had
expired, and an extension of time became necessary. So sluggish
were the Danes in the whole business that our Minister, Mr. Yeaman, could not control his impatience, and wrote of the national
characteristic, " In everything, from cobbler to king, they are the
most deliberate and leisurely people in the world." In the purchase of Alaska, on the other hand, between the first broaching
by the Russian Minister ani the final signature there was less than
a six months' interval.
No one saw more clearly than Mr. Seward the peril to which
the delay at Copenhagen exposed the treaty. Its only chance of
approval in this country grew out of the peculiar exigencies of a
civil war, when a long southern coast was held by the insurgents,
and that period was receding.  Military considerations were diminishing in force, and ambition for territory was not the passion
of the hour. Every day, too, the administration, of which Mr.
Seward was the inspiring leader, was losing the confidence of the
country.  He telegraphed January 19, 1867, to Mr. Yeaman,
"Tell Raasloff, haste important." In a letter to Mr. Yeaman,
August 7, 1867, he urged on the Danish government "promptness in the pending negotiation as essential to success;" and in letters September 23 and September 28, a month before the convention was signed, he emphasized the hazard to which the procrastination at Copenhagen had exposed the whole business, as
in the meantime the people of the country had lost interest
in the acquisition of a naval station in the West Indies and
were turning their attention to other and cheaper projects.
He wrote: "The desire for the acquisition of foreign territory
has sensibly abated. The delays which have attended the negotiation, notwithstanding our urgency, have contributed to still
further alleviate the national desire for enlargement of territory.
In short, we have already come to value dollars more and do



10
minion less." It was evident that Mr. Seward before the treaty
was submitted to the Senate, and even before the convention was
signed, had lost faith that it would be ratified, not because of any
peculiar adverse influences in that body, but because the American people had become unfriendly to such a purchase. It was a
dead treaty when Mr. Seward handed it to the Senate, as he well
knew at the time. This appears from his letters to Mr. Yeaman,
as well as from his letter to Mr. Sumner, November 9, 1868,
when replying to the latter's inquiry as to another matter, he
wrote: "'It is true on the contrary that instructed by the debates of Congress and the tone of the public press during the
past year, I have declined all recent suggestions in regard to the
acquisition of naval stations anywhere in the West Indies, especially the mole of St. Nicholas."*
The author of the "Episode" suggests foreign influence at
Washington operating against the treaty. This, of which she
gives no proof, is the creation of her imagination. When, where,
and on whom was it exercised? Was Mr. Seward approached in
that way, and does this account for his losing heart in the project? Was Fessenden bought up by some German lobbyist?
Did British gold find its way into Cameron's pockets? How were
Morton, Patterson, Harlan, Casserly, and Sumner taken care of?
One, without recurring to Horace (Nec deus intersit, etc.), ought
to be wiser than to resort to such an unnatural explanation.
The Danish negotiator in his letters to Mr. Sumner and in his
speech at Copenhagen named as his only difficulties " the prevailing ignorance of facts " (which he hoped to remove by proof of the
value of the islands as a naval station), and the contest between
the President and Congress; but he gave no hint of foreign influence. In fact the only influence of this kind exerted at Washington was in favor of the treaty-through the attractive qualities of
General Raasloff whom all wished if possible to serve, and the refined hospitality which he freely dispensed. Besides, he argued his
case on two different days before the Committee on Foreign Relations, and did what he could to affect public opinion.  He called
to his service as counsel to enlighten senators, a gentleman who
* The House resolution against further purchases of territory, passed November 25, 1867, by a vote of 93 to 43, was, as explainel by the speeches of its
mover, C. C. Washburn, November 25 and December 11, intended as a protest
against the purchase of St. Thomas.




11
combined social favor with professional accomplishments.  He
employed an able and well-known writer to prepare a pamphlet argument in favor of ratification, and supplied him with documents
concerning the treaty which had been printed by the Senate as confidential, and he sent this pamphlet to senators and to the leading
journals of the country, in which it was reviewed.  Articles in
favor of the ratification appeared in Paris contemporaneously in
the Moniteur and Pays, which indicated a prompting from the
same source. It is safe to say that a pressure of such various kinds
by a foreign power to carry a treaty in the Senate is without
precedent.
The paper under consideration seems to attribute to Mr.
Sumner altogether the failure of the treaty in the Foreign
Affairs Committee, for the reason that he was " almost implicitly
followed by it." He had indeed with the committee the weight
which comes from a combination of perfect integrity, sound
judgment, large experience and technical knowledge; but the
other members, Fessenden, Cameron, Harlan, Morton, Patterson
and Casserly, were not men naturally of his type, none of them
anti-slavery leaders like himself, every one of them at times
strongly differing from him. Mr. Fessenden was antipathetic to
him, and disposed to be critical of what he did. If Mr. Sumner
was unfair, if he did aught unbecoming a Senator, there were sharp
eyes to follow him. Mr. Fessenden, it may be remarked, was the
member most demonstrative against the St. Thomas treaty, and
he was one of the only two Senators who voted against the
Alaska purchase.  Clearly Mr. Sumner's " over-mastering advocacy" in favor of this last treaty did not influence the Senator
from Maine; and the latter's resistance to the St. Thomas project
came equally from his independent volition.
There are insinuations in Miss Seward's paper which are unworthy of any kinswoman of the distinguished statesman whose
name she bears, and which he, if living, would be the first to rebuke. In three passages, at least, she imputes to Mr. Sumner
an unworthy and deceptive silence, and a hypocritical purpose to
mislead General Raasloff and give him false hopes of a ratification of the treaty. In all this, as well as in the other charge of
"smothering" the treaty ("secretly and silently done," she
says), there is no truth. Happily, the amplest record evidence is
at hand to disprove them. As many as twenty-five letters or




12
notes from General Raasloff to Mr. Sumner, from December,
1868, to May, 1869, the period during most of which he was at
Washington urging the ratification, are preserved, and are in my
hands.
The purchase of St. Thomas did not attract Mr. Sumner, but
he kept an open mind concerning it, and as far as possible held
his judgment in suspense. He had a regard for Denmark as a
nation and a particular friendship for Raasloff, and sought to give
every opportunity to him to prove the value of the acquisition.
He arranged for Raasloff personal interviews with his colleagues,
and what was quite exceptional, if not unprecedented, formal audiences with the committee January 26 and January 28, 1869;
obtained documents for him which he sought in order to remove
objections to the purchase, distributed pamphlet arguments for
the treaty among the members of the committee which Raasloff
supplied, and intervened at his request to obtain the opinion of
Mr. G. V. Fox, which was known to be in favor of the purchase.
He was the one member of the committee to whom Raasloff applied freely for good offices, which were uniformly granted.
Nevertheless, he was never converted to the treaty. Raasloff's
surviving friend, General Christensen, says that he frequently
spoke of Mr. Sumner's connection with it, "always regretting
that he could not win the sympathy of that statesman for the
transaction."
The committee suspended action, but this was in order that
Mr. Seward and Raasloff should have the fullest opportunity to
complete all proofs and supply all considerations in favor of the
purchase. Mr. Seward never called for a decisive vote; and both
he and General Raasloff knew that there was no time when the
treaty would have been carried; and they thought with diminishing hope that there might be a favorable turn. It was a ratifying
vote which they desired, not a vote with the certainty of a rejection. The non-action of the Senate was at Raasloff's express
instance, as proved by a contemporaneous record. Mr. Fish wrote
to Mr. Sumner, March 28, 1869, a note containing only these
words: "DEAR SUMNER: Raasloff does not wish any action on
his treaty. He will probably see you. H. F."
The imputation of sinister silence on Mr. Sumner's part is effectually disproved by General aasloff's contemporaneous letters.
In December, 1868, probably late in the month, he arrived in




13
Washington with a view to press the treaty. At once he began to
send Mr. Sumner notes and letters about the treaty, as well as
congratulations on New Year's day and invitations to dine; and
they were meeting from day to day. On the evening of January
11, 1869, Mr. Sumner told him frankly that there was little or no
chance of his success with the committee and the Senate, and
sympathizing with him in the probable effect of his failure on his
position at home, said: " I am sorry for you; you are in a tight place,
etc.," words which were repeated by Raasloff in a note the next
morning, and which he said had kept him awake a good portion of
the night. In the same note and in another written a few days later,
he said that he was fully prepared for the worst, and had all along
been prepared for it. He felt, however, constrained to push his
case, and went before the committe on the 26th and 28th of the
same month, and otherwise did all he could to save it, but in vain.
At the last of March he left Washington, never to return. Just
before his departure Mr. Sumner gave him the portrait of Thorwaldsen, which he acknowledged March 28, 1869, saying "it
would be very dear to him as a souvenir d'amitie."  The gift was
made after Mr. Sumner had forewarned Raasloff of the doom of
the treaty, and had, neither in the mind of giver or receiver, as
Miss Seward sets up, any import of favorable action upon it.
Raasloff wrote from Copenhagen May 19, " Let me thank you
once more for the beautiful portrait of Thorwaldsen. It is much
admired both on account of the historical interest attaching to it,
and as a work of art. I hope I may be allowed to keep it." He
had gone from our country not to return, but his thought of Mr.
Sumner was as affectionate as ever.
An authentic statement of General Raasloff's appreciation of
Mr. Sumner's relations with himself and of the Senator's conduct
concerning the treaty appeared in the General's speech made at
Copenhagen after his return, when all active pressure for the
ratification had finally ended. The occasion was a celebration of
the amalgamation of some telegraph lines. Writing to Mr. Sumner May 19, 1869, a few days after the speech in which he had
mentioned the treaty and Mr. Sumner personally, he said: " I
felt very much tempted to say more about you than I did, but I
know you shrink from ovations and public compliments, all of
which, however, you cannot expect to escape. I did not say, as
the telegraph (I am told) has it, that you were in favor of ratify



14
ing the St. Thomas treaty; but I said that you had done more
than anybody else to save the treaty from an untimely death."
Here is a testimony from the person who was most interested and
best informed as to Mr. Sumner's course which assigns to him
more effective aid than any given by any one, including Mr.
Seward himself, "to save the treaty from an untimely death;"
testimony directly in the teeth of Miss Seward's intimation of
sinister silence, double dealing and suppression.
No other and contrary statements, it is presumed, were ever
made by him; for if made, they would show him to be other
than the honest and truthful man he was believed to be. The
General, as still further showing his absolute confidence in Mr.
Sumner, bespoke his friendly intervention in the embarrassed
relations between Prussia and Denmark, and said: "I find to
my great regret that we are not making any progress in our relations with Prussia; and I wish you would lend a hand in bringing about a really good understanding and sincere neighborly
relations between us and the North German Confederacy. We (I
mean my colleagues and myself) are anxious for it, but every time
we make an overture or an approach we are repulsed in such a
manner as to make it almost impossible with self-respect to make
new attempts.            I really know no other man in the
world who could as well as you, being the friend of both, help us
out of this unsatisfactory state of things, and thereby remove one
of the existing causes of war."  A European who could solicit in
such terms the friendly intervention of an American citizen in
the relations between his own and another kingdom must have
held in remarkable confidence and esteem the foreigner to whom
he applied.
Miss Seward deals disingenuously with this speech. She cites
it as made in June, 1869, in the Rigsdag, whereas it was made
May 13, at the banquet; but exact time and place are unimportant, except as bearing on her method of dealing with facts. She
quotes three sentences from the speech, and at the end of the first
one there are stars, indicating an omission. The next sentence'
was the following, at which she was careful to stop.  i It must,
however," continued General Raasloff, "not be forgotten that the
treaty has not been rejected; its ratification has only been postponed, and that it is so is owing to the stand taken by some few
wise statesmen, foremost among whom is my friend, the Hon.




15
Charles Sumner, one of the most prominent and experienced
statesmen of the age, for many years the leader of the Senate in
regard to foreign relations, and a man who never loses sight of
the regard and consideration due from one friendly nation to
another."
Miss Seward might well omit this sentence, as it spoils entirely
her theory. The omission of Mr. Seward's name from the speech
is significant. He had led the Danish negotiator into a pitfall,
and his name therefore received no grateful mention. Raasloff's
career as a public man ended with his diplomatic failure, and with
the fall of his ministry as the consequence; and leaving his country he passed the rest of his life abroad, chiefly in Paris, and died
in the suburb of Passy, February 14, 1883, at the age of sixtyseven. He was in New York in May, 1872, but he had become
soured by disappointment, and kept aloof from Washington.
Within a month before General Raasloff left Washington in
1869, there was a new President, General Grant, and a new Secretary of State, Mr. Fish, neither of whom showed favor to the treaty,
the former dismissing it summarily as " a scheme of Seward's and
he would have nothing to do with it;" and the latter sending Mr.
Sumner notes which indicated an adverse leaning. As appears by
one bearing date October 8, 1869, Mr. Fish peremptorily refused, at
the urgent request of De Bille, the new Danish minister, to ask for
another extension of time for the ratification, leaving De Bille to
ask for it, and took pains to guard against any expression in favor
of its ratification. A few months later, January 28, 1870, he
transmitted to Mr. Sumner, for use at his discretion, a letter from
R. C. Kirk, Minister Resident at Buenos Ayres, dated December
13, 1869, who, in an account of a recent visit, described St.
Thomas as " one of the most God-forsaken islands;" " the great
majority of its inhabitants filthy-looking negroes," subject to
earthquakes, one of which occurred on the morning of his arrival,
and the island itself as "not desirable even as a gift."
Miss Seward undertakes to give matters of record concerning
the treaty which at the time she wrote were under the seal of secrecy. But upon the removal of the injunction, January 5, 1888,
on Mr. Hoar's motion, it was found that Mr. Sumner did not, as
she states, indorse "the one word, 'adversely,' on the treaty,"
and that neither he nor any one indorsed that or any other words
upon it, it being absolutely free from any notes whatever. Even




16
the wrapper contains only a memorandum of the reference to the
committee. The words "suspension of action" which she puts
in quotation marks as Mr. Sumner's recommendation, are her
words, not Mr. Sumner's or the committee's.
The committee took definite action atf the time General
Raasloff left Washington finally. It laid the treaty on the table
March 30, 1869, and recorded on its minutes the words, "the
understanding being that this was equivalent to rejection and
was a gentler method of effecting it." For his sake it held back
its report for a year, and then cleared its docket. By the official
transcript from the record, it appears that on March 24, 1870,
Mr. Sumner reported the treaty "with the recommendation that
the Senate do not advise and consent to the ratification of the
same," with a similar report on the proposed extension of time.
Miss Seward's fidelity to facts will be understood on recurring to
her article, where she says that "the matter was never brought
before the Senate and may be said to have been smothered in
committee!"  The record, as now open to the public, it may be
added, shows Mr. Sumner's faithful attention to the business in
repeated motions for references of documents.
Of the Committee on Foreign Affairs to which the St. Thomas
treaty was referred, Cameron' of Pennsylvania, Patterson of New
Hampshire, and Harlan of Iowa, alone survive. Their testimony
has been requested, and after a reading of Miss Seward's " Episode," is cordially given. It should be read in the light of her
charges and insinuations of "smothering" and dishonorable reticence, and her assumption that the argument for the acquisition
was so self-evident and conclusive that it became "morally impossible to report openly against it," and that neither the Committee
nor any Senator "could assign a reason for an adverse report."
This is not the first time that an advocate sorely pressed finds it
easier to assume than to argue.
Mr. Cameron writes: "The rejection of the treaty was quite
a simple matter; there was no mystery about it. No person on
the Foreign Affairs Committee was in favor of the treaty. The
case of Alaska was very different, in which one of the chief motives was to show our regard for Russia for the part she had
taken during the war, and to strengthen the northwestern possessions.  The St. Thomas purchase made no impression upon
the committee or upon the public either. The smothered at1 Mr. Cameron has since died.




17
tack upon Mr. Sumner in this [Miss Seward's] article is most unjust."
Mr. Patterson writes: 6"I have read the article by Miss Seward
with a good deal of interest and more surprise. The Senate,
generally, I believe, regarded the treaty for the purchase of St.
John and St. Thomas about as General Grant did, as one of
Seward's schemes, and determined to have nothing to do with it.
Some denied the constitutionality and more rejected the policy of
entering upon a system of annexing non-contiguous territory and
outlying islands to the United States."  He states that the vote
of the islanders was regarded by senators as a mere farce, and that
not being fit for self-government, how they were to be governed
when annexed to a self-governing people was a problem not easily
solved; that in time of war the island would have been the first object struck at by an enemy, and would have required for its defense
a great increase of our military and naval force; and that the finishing stroke to the treaty, already meeting with no favor anywhere,
was given by a contemporaneous earthquake and tidal wave. He
adds: "The reason why the Senate did not act promptly on the
treaty, but allowed it to die on its hands, was a desire, if possible,
to save the liberal ministry of Denmark, which had been drawn
into that measure, against the natural effect of its rejection."
Mr. Harlan in his letter concurs with his associates in the
opinion that "as a mere commercial transaction the proposed
purchase at the price named would have been a great folly;" that
"' as a naval depot and coaling station St. Thomas would be of
doubtful value to the United States;" and "as it did not appear
to the committee to be specially desirable as a military station,
they decided unanimously, I think, not to recommend the ratification of the treaty." As to the charge of unjustifiable delay on
the part of the committee he writes, " In this case the committee
were not, I think, dilatory. Ample but only necessary time was
taken to make the necessary investigations and inquiries, and for
the interchange of views; and when they decided not to recommend the ratification it was thought that it would seem less harsh
towards the other power to permit the time for exchanging ratifications to expire than to formally reject the proposed cession."
In relation to the inquiry as to whether the chairman, Mr. Sumner, acted fairly in the transaction, Mr. Harlan adds, " None who
ever knew Mr. Sumner could have any doubt on that point. He




18
was the soul of candor and frankness.  And if he had been disposed to act otherwise in the case referred to, he could not have
trifled with the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs as then
constituted." It is perhaps worthy of observation that the Senate
appears to have unanimously acquiesced in the views of the committee.
Such is the true version of the " diplomatic episode," or rather
of the diplomatic fiasco, and a final question may be asked: If the
acquisition of St. Thomas was so manifestly desirable as Miss
Seward represents, how does it happen that no one at Washington
or among the people during the twenty years since Mr. Seward left
office has said a word to revive the scheme? A good thing does
not die so easily. There will always be true men and wise men
to appreciate what is of enduring value. We have since had six
Presidents, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland and Har,
rison, and, not counting Washburne, five Secretaries of State,
Fish, Evarts, Blaine, Frelinghuysen and Bayard; but none of them
has coveted this island of the Caribbean Sea, rifted by earthquakes, swept by cyclones, and submerged by tidal waves, the
imagined centre of universal commerce and a necessary outpost for
our national defense! Journals and merchants have been alike
silent. Foreign nations, who were suspected to be greedy spectators, have turned away from the prize. St. Thomas remains still
a Danish spinster, as she has been for two hundred years, unwedded and unsought. One lone sigh over her continued isolation
comes from the namesake of a statesman who saw visions of her
fairness and her dowry hidden altogether from the eyes of his own
and of this generation.
















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