INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT JAMES B. ANGELL, LL. D., JULY 11, 1893.

THE INADEQUATE RECOGNITION OF DIPLOMATISTS BY HISTORIANS.

The scholars of our time have often congratulated themselves that historical writers have in these later years been giving a wider scope to their work than the older historians gave to theirs. These later writers, in describing the history of a nation, have not confined themselves to the records of battles and of court intrigues and of royal genealogies. They have deemed it proper to give us some idea of the progress of the nation in letters, in art, in science, in economic development, in religion, in all that makes up what we call civilization. They have attempted to give us a vivid and accurate conception of the forces and the processes which have made nations what they are. And they have had in mind the true ideal of the historian's task.

But in the course of my studies I have been led to the conviction that most of the general historical narratives have failed to set forth with sufficient fullness the important features of great diplomatic transactions, and have failed even more sig. nally in specific recognition of the signal merits of many of the gifted negotiators of epoch-making treaties.

The work of international congresses, which have remade the map of Europe or the maps of other continents, which have extinguished the life of proud and ancient states or have created new states, which have given larger freedom to commerce and wider liberty in the use of the high seas, which have mitigated the cruelties of war and have swept the slave trade from the ocean; this work, so wide and far-reaching in its influence, of the diplomatic representatives of powerful states has been often passed over altogether by historians of renown or dismissed with the most succinct summary which was possible. Even where the results of negotiations are given it is rare that one finds any fairly complete account of

the processes by which these results were reached. May we not fairly ask whether to the reader of ordinary intelligence the important details of the discussions and deliberations in the congress at Münster are not of as much consequence as the details of any battle of the Thirty Years' War? Are not the particulars of the debates between Franklin and Jay and John Adams on the one side, and Oswald and Strachey and Fitzherbert on the other, in framing our treaty of independence, of as much interest and consequence as the details of battle the of Trenton?

But even when the results of negotiations are given with some fullness and estimated with justice, for the most part little or none of the credit which is due is given to the men who have brought the negotiations to a successful issue. Generally not even their names are mentioned. The consequence is that no class of public servants of equal merit is so inadequately appreciated even by those who are pretty well read in history. Our very school children are so taught that the names of great generals, Wallenstein and Tilley, Marlborough and Prince Eugene, Turenne and Condé, Washington and Greene, are familiar to them. But if you will try a simple experiment, as I have done several times, upon persons of cultivation, I venture the guess that you will find that scholars of considerable familiarity with European history can not tell and can not say that they have ever known who were the principal negotiators of the Peace of Westphalia, or of treaties of such historical importance as those of Nimeguen, Ryswick, Utrecht, or Paris of 1763, or Paris of 1856. And the reason is not far to seek. It is because most of the general histories of the periods, to which those treaties belong, have little or nothing to say of the envoys, who, with much toil and discussion, wrought them out. To learn the names of those neglected men, and especially to learn anything of their personality, one must have recourse to special diplomatic histories or personal memoirs, when such can be found.

If my impression of the treatment which important diplomatic work has received in most of our general histories is correct, I think we shall all agree that they are seriously deficient in this regard. If any events in European history for the last two centuries and a half have been of vital importance, the negotiation of some of the treaties I have named must be ranked as such. When we recall how the Peace of

Westphalia weakened the German Empire, strengthened France, adjusted the relations of the three great branches of the church in Germany, and practically established the modern state system of Europe; or how the Treaty of Utrecht permanently separated the crowns of France and Spain, added to England's possessions Newfoundland, Hudson Bay, Acadia, St. Kitts, Gibraltar and Minorca, and fixed the Hanove rian succession, enlarged the power of Savoy and recognized the King of Prussia; how the Treaty of Paris of 1763 gave Canada and the Floridas and the navigation of the Mississippi to England, and how the Treaty of Paris of 1856 abolished privateering and established new guarantees to neutral trade upon all the seas; who shall say that the framing of these treaties and of others, hardly less important, does not deserve ample treatment, and that the talent and skill of the men who negotiated them does not deserve generous recognition in our more important general histories as well as in the special diplomatic histories?

The distinguished publicist, Pradier-Fodéré, has well said that a good minister is sometimes equal to an army of a hundred thousand men. Pyrrhus is credited with the remark that his envoy, Cyneas, had given him more cities than any of his generals. John Adams, who filled so many high offices with honor, was apparently, and justly, prouder of his treaty with the Netherlands, which he procured in the face of well-nigh insuperable obstacles, than of almost any other achievement of his life. His no less distinguished son, John Quincy Adams, declared that he considered his signature of the so-called Florida treaty with Spain in 1819 the most important event of his life

It may be said in answer to my plea for the ampler recogni tion of the services of great diplomatists that they only register the results which the great soldiers have really secured, and therefore deserve less fame than the generals. To this two rejoinders can fairly be offered: First, while war may decide that one nation is to gather the larger part of the fruits of a negotiation with another, it does not decide the details of the settlement to be made. And in fixing these, in determining with large foresight the consequences of particular adjustments, in felicity of statement, in cogency of discussion, in knowledge of international law, in weight of personality, the representatives of the conquered nation may, and often do, win back much of what seemed to have been wrested away S. Mis. 104-2

by the victorious sword of the antagonist. The skillful diplomatists of Louis XIV repeatedly enhanced the value of his victories and diminished the losses incurred by his defeats. The American victory at Yorktown determined the fact that we should somehow have our independence, but we owe it to our commissioners at Paris, especially to Jay, rather than to the generals in command of our armies, that Great Britain was constrained to treat with us as an equal and independent nation, that we did not accept independence as a grant from the mother country, that our treaty was a treaty of partition, and not of concession. The important results of that fact are familiar to us all. By no means is the work of the negotiator done by the military commander.

And, secondly, some of the most important negotiations are not the consequence of war, are not preceded by war. Rather they serve to prevent war. Take as an example the treaty of Washington of 1871, popularly known as the Alabama treaty. It was drawn to remove the dangerous causes of dissension between us and Great Britain. Few events in our national life have been of more consequence than the negotiation and execution of that treaty. It belongs to so recent a date that most of us remember distinctly the meeting of the high joint commissioners who framed it. Does any one now question the supreme importance of their work? And yet how few even of the well-informed citizens of Great Britain or of the United States can repeat the names, I will not say of all, but of the most prominent members of that commission. Do our school children find them given in any of the manuals of United States history which are placed in their hands?

It is then far from true that the value of the services of diplomatists is wholly dependent on the deeds of the soldier. In some cases it is not true that they are at all determined by military achievements. There is no good reason why the historian should with emphasis dwell on the skill of generals, and be silent concerning the genius and the work of great masters of the diplomatic art.

Let us now notice briefly what we do find in some of our histories concerning a few important treaties and the men who drew them. Take the great treaties negotiated at Münster and Osnabrück, to which as a whole the name of The Peace of Westphalia is generally given. All will agree that it is one of the most important events in the history of modern Europe. Of