Bancroft, George—Treaty with Germany—Vancouver Boundary Line.—The very cordial relations which subsisted between the United States and Germany from the days of Frederick the Great were carefully nurtured by the great men succeeding the establishment of the republic, as shown elsewhere by the comments of President Adams on the treaties with Prussia, and were strongly cemented by the aid extended the Union by Germany during the Civil War, as acknowledged by Secretary Seward and prominent members of the United States Senate. One of the most active promoters of this friendship was America’s foremost historian, George Bancroft, Secretary of the Navy under President Polk, and father of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, minister to Great Britain and subsequently to Prussia and Germany (1867-74).

It was through his efforts and friendly personal relations with Bismarck that a memorable agreement came into existence which established the right of immigrant German Americans to renounce their old allegiance and accept an exclusive American citizenship, exempting them from performing military service should they return to their native land. The effect of this agreement was more important than appears, as it was the first time that by a formal act the principle of renunciation of citizenship at the will of the individual was recognized. Beyond this, it led to a complete change of policy on the part of Great Britain by upsetting the old doctrine, “once an Englishman, always an Englishman.” The immediate good result was the renunciation by England of her claim to indefeasible allegiance, and to the right to impress into the British service a former British subject who had become an American citizen, a claim which had contributed to bring about the War of1812.

Nor was this all that Bancroft accomplished. The Northwestern boundary, having been settled by treaty, Bancroft, while United States Minister in Great Britain, had perceived an incipient effort of a great English interest to encroach on the territory which had been acknowledged by the treaty to be a part of the United States.

By and by the importunities of interested persons in England, who possessed a great party influence, began to make themselves heard, and the British government by degrees supported the attempt to raise a question respecting the true line of the boundary of the Northwest and finally formulated a perverse claim of their own, with a view of obtaining what they wanted as a compromise.

The American administration had of course changed, and the President and his cabinet, having had no part in the negotiations, agreed to refer the question to an arbiter. They made the mistake of consenting that the arbiter, if there was uncertainty as to the true boundary line, might himself establish a boundary of compromise. The person to whom the settlement of the dispute was to be referred was the president of the Swiss Republic.

The American Secretary of State chanced to die while the method of arrangement was still inchoate. Bancroft at once wrote to the new Secretary, urging him not to accept a proposal of compromise, because that would seem to admit an uncertainty as to the American title, and to sanction and even invite a decision of the arbiter in favor of a compromise, and would open the way for England, under an appearance of concession, to obtain all that she needed.

Being at the time minister to the court of Prussia, he advised the government to insist on the American claim in full, not to listen to a proposal of compromise, but to let each party formulate its claim, and to call on the arbiter to decide which was right, and urged it to select for that arbiter the Emperor of Germany.

The Department of State at once consented that the arbiter should be the Emperor of Germany, and left the whole matter of carrying out the American argument to Bancroft. The conduct of the question, the first presentation of the case, as well as the reply to the British, were every word by him, and the decision of the Emperor was unreservedly in favor of the United States. (Prof. William M.Sloane, in “The Century,” for January,1887.)

Bancroft has been pronounced one of the greatest historians of the past century; he was one of the most distinguished statesmen of his time, and as former minister to London and a student at GÖttingen and minister to Germany, he was qualified as no other famous American to form an appraisal of German, French and English policies, especially in regard to ourselves. We may be pardoned, therefore, in taking more than a cursory interest in some expressions which occur in a letter of Bancroft’s, addressed to Hamilton Fish, then Secretary of State, and written at Berlin during the Franco-Prussian war.

In summing up his reasons for preferring Germany over England and France, he says: “If we need the solid, trusty good will of any government in Europe, we can have it best with Germany; because German institutions and ours most resemble each other; and because so many millions of Germans have become our countrymen. This war will leave Germany the most powerful State in Europe, and the most free; its friendship is therefore most important to us, and has its foundation in history and in nature.” (“Life and Letters of George Bancroft,” by M.A. De Wolfe Howe, II,245.)