The two Democratic Johnsons, Andrew and Reverdy, furnished their ideas of a foreign policy in the Johnson-Clarendon treaty. They undertook to settle the American claims against England on account of the Alabama outrage by the award of a Commission, one-half of whose members were to be chosen by England and the other half by the United States; and, in case of a disagreement, an umpire was to be chosen by lot. That is to say, a great National controversy, involving grave questions of international law, and claims of undoubted validity, amounting to millions of money, was to be decided by the toss of a copper! The administration of General Grant crushed the disgraceful treaty, and proposes to deal with England on the principle laid down in General Grant's inaugural. The United States will treat all other Nations "as equitable law requires individuals to deal with each other;" but, "if others depart from this rule in their dealings with us, we may be compelled to follow their precedent."
On the great question of reconstruction, in what a masterly way and with what marked success has General Grant's administration begun. Congress had fixed its day of adjournment, and all plans for reconstructing the three unrepresented States had been postponed until next December. At this junction General Grant, on the 7th of April last, sent to Congress a special message recommending that before its adjournment it take the necessary steps for the restoration of the State of Virginia to its proper relations to the Union. As the ground of his recommendation he said: "I am led to make this recommendation from the confident hope and belief that the people of that State are now ready to co-operate with the National government in bringing it again into such relations to the Union as it ought as soon as possible to establish and maintain, and to give to all its people those equal rights under the law which were asserted in the declaration of independence, in the words of one of the most illustrious of its sons."
The message of the president was referred, in the House of Representatives, to the Committee on Reconstruction. That committee the next day reported a bill for the reconstruction of Virginia, and also of Mississippi and Texas. The character of the bill sufficiently appears by the first two sections relating to Virginia: