The War of 1812, undertaken by the United States against Great Britain, was pre-eminently a struggle on the part of the former to main tain and enforce correct principles of inter national law. It involved the claim by Great Britain of the right of visitation of neutral vessels and the impressment of such of their crews as the visiting party saw fit ; the doctrine that free ships make free goods, or the exemp tion of innocent neutral commerce from seizure in time of war; and the paper blockades which were sought to be enforced by the warring powers. None of these questions were settled by the terms of the treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain. But the con tention of the United States as to all of them has come to be accepted by all the nations of • the world and by none of them more heartily than by Great Britain. The right of visitation and search of vessels was a frequent subject of negotiations, but while the British government relaxed the enforcement of its alleged right after the war, its claim was not finally aban doned until 1858, when it formally accepted the contention of the United States. A strange incident in connection with this question oc curred soon after that date. During the Civil War the commander of a United States naval vessel arrested a British mail steamer, the Trent, on the high sea, visited her with an armed force and carried away as prisoners two Confederate diplomatic agents en route to Europe. In the United States the naval com mander was hailed as a hero, but in England the act was regarded as an insult to the British flag .tiel a just cause of var. A li ile conflict was avoided by the prompt surrender of the Con agents and a disavowal of the act. as in direct contradiction to the attitude of the government consistently maintained from its the immunity of the vessel carry ing the American flag.
The claim of the right of impressment (q.v.) was connected with the subject of naturalization and expatriation, which has been the occasion of much diplomatic correspondence and contro versy on the part of the United States with European powers. From the beginning of its existence the former has encouraged immigra tion; liberal laws for the naturalization of for eigners have been passed; and the right of expatriation has been maintained. In this branch of international law this attitude has had a marked effect upon the practice of na tions. One of the chief causes of the War of 1812, it has been seen, was because of the impressment of seamen, naturalized citizens of British birth, taken from American•vessels. The old common-law doctrine was that no British subject could denationalize himself and that he owed perpetual allegiance to the Crown; but the persistent claim of the United States was finally recognized by Parliament in the Nat uralization Act of 1870. The doctrine of ex patriation is now generally accepted by the nations and the United States has succeeded in having it embodied in many of its treaties.
The subject of free ships was given much prominence through the armed neutrality dur ing the Revolutionary War, was one of the unsettled issues of the War of 1812 and was finally recognized as a principle to be incorpo rated into the international code by the great Powers of Europe, as embodied in the Declara tion at Paris of 1856. This declaration consisted of four rules, which were, briefly stated, (1) the abolition of privateering; (2) the exemption from seizure of an enemy's goods under a neutral flag; (3) a like exemption of neutral goods under an enemy's flag; and (4) that a blockade, in order to be valid, must be effective. All of these but the first had been long advo cated by the United States, and even the first had been incorporated in its treaty with Prussia of 1785. The latter was plainly in the interest
of nations having a strong navy. Nevertheless, the United States was ready to accept them all as rules for the government of nations, but Secretary Marcy proposed to the great Powers that they go one step further and declare that private property of belligerents at sea be ex empt from capture. As private property of belligerents on land has been exempted by the rules of war, there would seem to be no suffi cient reason why the same treatment should not be applied to like property at sea. President McKinley instructed the American representa tives at The Hague Conference of 1899 to advocate it, but they were not successful. Presi dent Roosevelt continued to urge upon the na tions this advanced measure to mitigate the ravages of war, but it has not yet been inserted in the international code.
The fourth rule of the Paris Declaration was, in effect, a formal recognition of one of the principles contended for in the War of 1812, that there can be no blockade by mere procla mation. Its application bore heavily upon the United States during the Civil War, but it consistently observed the principle by making its blockade of the Southern ports effective. An effort has been made of late years to establish what is known as a specific blockade, by which one or more states seek to bring constraint upon another state by closing its ports without a declaration of war. In the case of the block ade of Crete by the great Powers of Europe in 1897, the United States declined to concede the right as applicable to its commerce; and when a similar attempt was made in 1902 of a pacific blockade of Venezuelan ports by.Great Britain, Germany, and Italy, the objection of the United States to its interference with American vessels led to the abandonment of the project and to the establishment of a real war blockade.
The subject of neutrality assumed an im portant phase during the War of the Rebel lion, and the duties and responsibilities of a neutral state were the occasion of a heated controversy with the British government. Al though the latter had incorporated in its laws the substantial provisions of the United States statutes of 1818, it dissented from the position asserted by the United States as to its duties in the practical application of its acts of Parlia ment and the recognized principles of interna tional law. The construction of Confederate cruisers in British ports and the aid afforded them in such ports was held to be a failure on the part of that government to discharge its duties as a neutral power, and for these acts the United States made grave complaint and filed a large claim for pecuniary damages. After much discussion the matter was sub. mitted to the arbitration of a tribunal, which met at Geneva (see GENEVA CONVENTION). In the treaty providing for the arbitration there were inserted three rules as to neutrality which were to govern the arbitrators in their decision. These rules were based upon the American statute and mainly followed the contention of the United States. The result was a decision in favor of the latter, with a large award in damages. The two governments had agreed in the treaty that they would submit the rules to the other maritime powers for their acceptance, but this was never done, chiefly because of the extreme construction placed upon some of their clauses in the opinions of the neutral arbi trators. The general concensus of publicists is that these rules are a correct statement of ex isting international law.