erally followed their footsteps-a neutral vessel which happens to be in a blockaded port is not permitted to depart with a cargo unless that cargo was on board at the time when the blockade commenced or was first made known. Having visited the port in the common freedom of trade, a neutral vessel ought to be permitted to depart with a cargo without regard to the time when it was received on board." Mr. Marcy, Sec. of State, to Mr. Buchanan, Apr. 13, 1854. MSS. Inst., Gr. As condemning paper blockades, see Mr. Marcy, Sec. of State, to Mr. Sartiges, "The blockade of an enemy's coast, in order to prevent all intercourse with neutral powers, even for the most peaceful purpose, is a claim which gains no additional strength by an investigation into the foundation on which it rests; and the evils which have accompanied its exercise call for an efficient remedy. The investment of a place by sea and land with a view to its reduction, preventing it from receiving supplies of men and material necessary for its defense, is a legitimate mode of prosecuting hostilities which cannot be reasonably objected to, so long as war is recognized as an arbiter of national disputes. But the blockade of a coast or of commercial positions along it, without any regard to ulterior military operations, and with the real design of carrying on a war against trade, and from its very nature against the trade of peaceable and friendly powers, instead of a war against armed men, is a proceeding which it is difficult to reconcile with reason or with the opinions of modern times. To watch every creek and river and harbor upon an ocean frontier, in order to seize and confiscate every vessel with its cargo attempting to enter or go out, without any direct effect upon the true objects of war, is a mode of conducting hostilities which would find few advocates if now first presented for consideration. Unfortunately, however, the right to do this has been long recognized by the law of nations, accompanied indeed with precautionary conditions, intended to prevent abuse, but which experience has shown to be lamentably inoperative. It is very desirable, therefore, that this constant source of irritation in time of war should be guarded against, and the power to interrupt all intercourse with extensive regions be limited and precisely defined, before, by a necessary reaction, its exercise is met by an armed resistance. "But Lord Stowell has borne yet more direct testimony to the correctness of these suggestions. In a case decided by him, he said a blockade is a sort of circumvallation, by which all correspondence and communication is, as far as human force can effect it, effectually cut off,' etc." Mr. Cass, Sec. of State, to Mr. Mason, June 27, 1859. MSS. Inst., France. "The undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States, has had the bonor of receiving the note of Baron Gerolt of the 30th ultimo, mak ing inquiries about the blockade of the ports in several of the States, and would observe in reply "1st. That the blockade will be strictly enforced upon the principles recognized by the law of nations. "2d. That armed vessels of neutral states will have the right to enter and depart from the interdicted ports. "3d. That merchant vessels in port at the time when the blockade took effect will be allowed a reasonable time for their departure. "4th. The Government cannot consent that the emigrant vessels shall enter the interdicted ports." Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Baron Gerolt, May 2, 1861. MSS. Notes, Prussia. Temporary fortuitous absence of a blockading force, by which oc casional blockade-runners slip in, does not of itself break up the blockade. Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Lord Lyons, May 27, 1861. MSS. Notes, Gr. Brit. Lord Russell, in an interview with Mr. Adams, having stated that the British Government, in conformity with a declaration previously made in the House of Commons, would not recognize as internationally binding a decree of a sovereign closing certain of his ports which were in the hands of insurgents, Mr. Seward instructed Mr. Adams that though there was an act of Congress authorizing the President to close such ports of the United States as were held by the Confederates, the President, while not conceding that such action would not be internationally valid, had not determined to enforce the act of Congress, and regarded as satisfactory the position taken by the British Government as to the requisites of blockade. Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Adams, July 20, 1861. MSS. Inst., Gr. Brit. "The loan made by European capital is a direct engagement with the armed insurgents, who have assumed to control, supply, and deliver cotton for the reimbursement of the money advanced, with interest. You will give notice to Earl Russell that this transaction necessarily brings to an end all concessions, of whatever form, that have been made by this Government for mitigating or alleviating the rigor of the blockade in regard to the shipment of cotton and tobacco. Nor will any title of any person, whether citizen of the United States or subject of a foreign power, to any cotton or merchandise, which title is derived from or through any pretended insurgent authority or other agency hostile to the United States, be respected by this Government." Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Adams, Apr. 10, 1863. MSS. Inst., Gr. Brit. "Only such blockades as shall be duly proclaimed and maintained by adequate force, in conformity to the law of nations, will be observed and respected by the United States." Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Sullivan, June 13, 1867. MSS. Inst., Colombia. The United States Government was entitled under the law of nations to send in 1868, without molestation from the Brazilian blockading squadron, an armed cruiser up the river Parana to Paraguay, then at war with Brazil, the object being to bring home the minister of the United States at Paraguay. Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Webb, Aug. 17, 1868. MSS. Inst., Brazil. "I am aware of no instance in which the right of blockade has been invoked for the purpose of preventing the Government of a neutral and friendly state from communicating with its diplomatic agent accredited to the Government of the blockaded country. It is believed that safe conducts are rarely, if ever, refused under such circumstances, and when the refusal does take place the aggrieved party has a right to expect sufficient reasons therefor." Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Mr. Kirk, June 17, 1869. MSS. Inst., Arg. Rep. See supra, § 97. "I have had the honor to receive your note of yesterday. It is accompanied by a copy of a circular addressed to you by the chancellor of the Empire, relative to the supposed blockade by Turkey of the ports of the Black Sea by proclamation only, and the indiscriminate placing by order of that power of torpedoes in the bed of the Danube. Although it is true that the United States did not sign and has not since acceded to the declaration of Paris of 1856, our reserve in this respect was and has not been occasioned by any doubt as to the soundness of the rule in regard to blockades which that instrument embodies. That rule has always been regarded by this Government as the wisest, especially in the interests of neutrals, and as founded upon texts of public law generally received. It is probable, however, that as the flag of the United States, even in times of peace, is seldom seen in the Black Sea, there probably will be little or no occasion for the practical assertion of the rule by us at this juncture. The employment of torpedoes is so recent a belligerent device that it is believed the powers. as yet have had no opportunity to consider the general regulations, if any, to which they should be subjected. For this reason I now forbear to express any opinion upon the proceeding to which you advert." Mr. Evarts, Sec. of State, to Mr. Shishkin, June 12, 1877. MSS. Notes, Russia; When threatened by civil strife or foreign war, a Government may readily be supposed to have the right to interdict traffic with any port. "This carries with it the right to punish infractions of the proclaimed interdiction; in other words, to enforce the declared blockade. The pri vate citizens of other Governments engaged in commercial pursuits are not bound to obey the proclamation, but they disobey it at their peril. It is, however, no part of the international duties of the Governments to which such citizen belong to enforce against them the declaration of blockade made by another state. Mr. Frelinghuysen, Sec. of State, to Mr. Langston, Dec. 15, 1883. MSS. Inst., "This Government, following the received tenets of international law, does not admit that a decree of a sovereign Government closing certain national ports in the possession of foreign enemies or of insurgents has any international effect, unless sustained by a blockading force sufficient to practically close such ports. "Mr. Lawrence thus states the rule drawn from the positions taken by the administrations of Presidents Jefferson and Madison during the struggles with France and England, which grew out of the attempt to claim the right of closure-as equivalent to blockade-without effective action to that end: 'Nor does the law of blockade differ in civil war from what it is in foreign war. Trade between foreigners and a port in possession of one of the parties to the contest cannot be prevented by a municipal interdict of the other. For this, on principle, the most obvious reason exists. The waters adjacent to the coast of a country are deemed within its jurisdictional limits only because they can be commanded from the shore. It thence follows that whenever the dominion over the land is lost, by its passing under the control of another power, whether in foreign war or civil war, the sovereignty over the waters capable of being controlled from the land likewise ceases.' (Lawrence's note on Wheaton, part ii, ch. iv, § 5 (2d annotated ed.), 846.) "The situation which the present decree assumes to create is analogous to that caused by the action of the Goverment of New Granada in 1861. The Granadian chargé d'affaires, Señor Rafael Pombo, on the 31st of March of that year, notified Mr. Seward that certain ports, among them Rio Hacha, Santa Marta, Cartagena, Sabanilla, and Zapote, all on the Caribbean coast, had been declared to be closed to commerce whether of export or of import. There is this difference, however, that the Granadian Government then announced that war vessels of the Confederation were to cruise about the ports closed to commerce for the purpose of seizing vessels which should be found violating the closure which had been decreed. It appears from Mr. Seward's note of acknowledgment to Señor Pombo, dated April 9, 1861, that the an nouncement then made was interpreted as a declaration that certain named ports were 'in a state of blockade which should be rendered effective by national vessels, and of which due public notice had been given.' "While the Government of the United States, in 1861, thus confirmed the doctrine it had consistently maintained from the earliest days of the Republic, that non-possessed ports might be effectually closed by a maritime blockade, the British Government then controverted the right of New Granada to resort to such a remedy. Answering an inquiry in the House of Commons, June 27, 1861, Lord John Russell, the secretary of state for foreign affairs, said: "The Government of New Granada has announced not a blockade, but that certain ports of New Granada are to be closed. The opinion of Her Majesty's Government, after taking legal advice, is that it is perfectly competent to the Government of a country in a state of tranquillity to say which ports shall be open to trade and which shall be closed; but in the event of insurrection or civil war in that country, it is not competent for its Government to close the ports that are de facto in the hands of the insurgents, as that would be a violation of international law with regard to blockades.' His lordship added that orders had been given to the British naval commanders in the Caribbean Sea 'not to recognize the closing of these ports.' (See Parliamentary Debates, cited in Lawrence's Wheaton (2d annotated ed.) notes, 46-48.) "When in 1861 the civil war in the United States broke out, this Government maintained the position that the municipal closure of domestic ports in the hands of the Confederate forces was a legitimate incident toward the maintenance of an effective blockade by sea. This was opposed by the British Government, and in the correspondence which then took place Lord John Russell repeatedly announced to Mr. Adams the same rule as he had previously announced with regard to the Granadian decree; and he finally appealed to his answer in the New Granada case for the purpose of showing that it was intended to make the rule universal. (U. S. Dip. Corr., 1861, 90, 95, 117, 120, 177.) The British ministry ultimately went to the extreme of declaring that they would consider such a municipal enactment (that of the closure of non-possessed ports) as null and void, and that they would not submit to measures taken on the high seas in pursuance of such decree.' (Parliamentary Papers, 1862, North America, No. 1, 72; Lord Lyons to Lord J. Russell, August 12, 1861.) "In a speech of Mr. Cobden, made on October 25, 1862 (cited in Lawrence's Wheaton, 2d annotated ed., 823, note), he said: 'It has been distinctly intimated to America that we do not recognize their municipal right in the matter; and if they were to proclaim, for example, that Charleston was not to be traded with, and did not keep a sufficient force of ships there, we should go on trading with the town just as if nothing had occurred. It is only upon condition that the blockade shall be effectively maintained as between belligerents that the European powers recognize it at all. “A recent authority, Professor Perels, judge of the imperial admiralty court in Berlin, in a treatise on international maritime law, published in 1882, writes thus: "The embargo of domestic ports, no matter by what measures or for what purpose it takes place, as it has not the character of a real blockade, cannot have the same consequences. can indeed without question be maintained, in case of need, by means of the employment of force against such neutral ships as do not choose It |