[109] all those who had reflected upon the subject expected the President to give extensive authority for making treaties. The views held by the chairman were that the commissioners should be authorized to propose to Great Britain, France, and other European nations, upon the conditions of recognition and alliance, that the Confederate States for twenty years would agree to lay no higher duties on productions imported than fifteen or twenty per cent. ad valorem; that for this period, no tonnage duties would be laid on their shipping, entering or leaving Confederate ports, but such as should be imposed to keep in order the harbors and rivers; that the navigation between the ports of the Confederate States for the same time should be free to the nations entering into alliance with the Confederate States, while upon the productions and tonnage of all nations refusing to recognize their independence and enter into treaty with them, a discriminating duty of ten per cent. would be imposed. He believed, moreover, that they should be authorized to make an offensive and defensive league, with special guarantees, as was done in 1778. Here was a direct and powerful appeal to the interests of foreign nations, especially England. Would any British Minister have dared to reject a treaty offering such vast advantages to his country? And if so, when the fact became known to Parliament, could he have retained his place? Up to September, 1862, the United States Government was committed, both by diplomatic dispatches and by the action of Congress, to the declaration that the war was made solely to preserve the Union and with the purpose of maintaining the institutions of the seceded States, unimpaired and unaltered. Hence, at this period, the issue of slavery had not been injected into diplomacy, and was no obstacle to negotiating treaties.
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| John H. Reagan, Confederate Postmaster-General. |
