Alabama Claims

ALABAMA CLAIMS

ALABAMA CLAIMS. American grievances against Great Britain during and just after the Civil War clustered about this generic phrase, but they filled a broad category. Most Northerners regarded Queen Victoria's proclamation of neutrality, giving the South belligerent rights, as hasty and unfriendly. Confederate cruisers, built or armed by Britons, destroyed Northern shipping, drove insurance rates high, and forced many Northern ships under foreign flags. The Confederates raised large sums of money in Great Britain and outfitted blockade runners there.

Early in the war, Secretary of State William H. Seward instructed Minister C. F. Adams to lay the losses caused by the Alabama before the British government, with a demand for redress. In April 1863 British authorities halted the Alexandra when Adams proved it was intended for the Confederacy; in September, they detained two armored rams under construction. One other Confederate ship, the Shenandoah, clearly violated British neutrality laws, but only after refitting at Melbourne. Ultimately, the United States claimed damages totaling $19,021,000.

The United States occasionally repeated its claims but met no response until 1868. The Johnson-Clarendon Convention, signed that year, made no mention of the Alabama damages but provided for a settlement of all Anglo-American claims since 1853. Partly because of the unpopularity of the Andrew Johnson administration, the Senate overwhelmingly defeated the convention (13 April 1869). Senator Charles Sumner seized the opportunity to review the whole case against Great Britain. Not only had the Alabama and other cruisers done heavy damage, he declared, but British moral and material support for the South had doubled the war's duration. Sumner set the total U.S. bill at $2.1 billion, a demand that could be met only by the cession of Canada. Hamilton Fish, who became secretary of state in March 1869, took a saner position, announcing that Britain could satisfy the Alabama Claims with a moderate lump sum, an apology, and a revised definition of maritime international law.

The impasse between the two nations was brief. The two countries soon formed a joint commission to settle the whole nexus of disputes—Canadian fisheries, northwestern boundary, and Alabama Claims. The commission drew up the Treaty of Washington (signed 8 May 1871), which expressed British regret for the escape of the Alabama and other cruisers, established three rules of maritime neutrality, and submitted the Alabama Claims to a board of five arbitrators. On 14 September 1872 this tribunal awarded the United States $15.5 million in gold to meet its direct damages, all indirect claims having been excluded. American opinion accepted the award as adequate.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cook, Adrian. The "Alabama" Claims. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1975.

Davis, Bancroft. Mr. Fish and the "Alabama" Claims. Manchester, N.H.: Ayer, 1977.

Nevins, Allan. Hamilton Fish. New York: Ungar, 1957.

Allan Nevins / c. w.

See also Blockade Runners, Confederate ; Navy, Confederate ; Washington, Treaty of .