Great Britain neutralized the mission of the ambassadors, though the danger of foreign intervention never wholly disappeared until the idea of intervention had been made odious by the beginning of the emancipation system in September, 1862, and dangerous by the turning of the tide against the Confederacy in the following July. But in the course of the struggle there was a narrow escape from war with Great Britain on another question. The first few Confederate privateers had gone to sea from Southern ports, and had not been very successful. British shipyards were at once made use of by Confederate agents. In March, 1862, the Oreto (afterwards the Florida) put to sea; in July the Alabama followed her; and in April, 1863, and September, 1864, the Georgia and Shenandoah gained the ocean. All these were built, equipped, and manned by British subjects, and their escape was ascribed by her majesty's government to defects in the neutrality laws. This excuse the United States refused to admit, holding that a neutral nation was bound to have efficient neutrality laws; and a mass of grievances, known in the aggregate as the "Alabama Claims, was gradually made up. Early in 1863 a far stronger case came up. It was found that two rams were building at the Laird ship-yard in Liverpool for the purpose of breaking the blockade; while, in the parallel contemporary case of the Alexandra, the Court of Exchequer decided that, under the foreign enlistment act, the selling of a vessel to a belligerent was as proper as the selling of arms. Diplomatic relations were at once tightly strained in appearance. The President informed his representative in Great Britain that, if the law of the Court of Exchequer should be sustained, he would be left to understand that there is no law in Great Britain which will be effective to preserve mutual relations of forbearance. Earl Russell in Parliament declared, for his government, that the Liverpool builders had "done everything in their power, by fitting out ships, by engaging in contracts for supplying vessels of war to the other belligerent, to give to the United States a just cause of war against this country;" and the calamity of the American merchant marine, under privateer attacks, was a pregnant warning of the certain results of such a war upon British commerce. The whole force of the government was thrown against the builders, who were at last induced, early in 1864, to sell the rams to the British government. The mass of claims against Great Britain, for her lack of "due diligence" in maintaining neutrality, were submitted to arbitration by the treaty of Washington, May 8, 1871; and the arbitrators, sitting at Geneva, awarded a gross sum of $15,500,000 as damages to be paid by Great Britain, Sept. 14, 1872. (See ALABAMA CLAIMS.)

A civil, diplomatic, and financial history of the Confederate States by a Southern authority, and free from feeling, would be most useful and valuable; but it has yet to be written. The nearest approach to it is A. H. Stephens' Historical View of the War Between the States; but this is devoted mainly to the preliminary constitutional questions, and leaves the Confederate History almost untouched. Much may be gained from Pollard's unmethodical Secret History of the Confederacy, and more from Jones' Rebel War Clerk's Diary, and the collection known as The Richmond Examiner During the War. Beyond these sources of information there is hardly anything available. Jeffer son Davis' Rise and Fall of the Confederate States is almost entirely an apology for the life of its author; and the Confederate public documents are not collected, except the Statutes at Large. See also Draper's History of the American Civil War, which gives details of secession in the border States; Botts' Great Rebellion; Bartlett's Bibliography of the Rebellion; McPherson's Political History of the Rebellion; Moore's Rebellion Record; Buchanan's Administration; Cox's Eight Years in Congress (for the opposition there); Sterne's Constitutional History; Hurd's Theory of our National Existence; Spaulding's Legal Tender Paper Money; Schuckers' Life of Chase; Reports of U.S. Secretaries of the Treasury; Diplomatic Correspondence, 1861-72; Cushing's Treaty of Washington; Case of the United States; Cuse and Counter-Case of Great Britain.

(A. J.)

CONFEDERATION, ARTICLES OF. See CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES and CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

CONFESSION, in law, a voluntary declaration made by a person who has committed a crime or misdemeanor of the agency or participation which he had in the same.

Confessions are either judicial or extra-judicial. A judicial confession is one made before a magistrate or in court in due course of judicial proceedings instituted against the person confessing in order to convict him of the crime. All judicial confessions are conclusive as against the parties making them. An extra-judicial confession is one not thus made before a court or magistrate, is not necessarily conclusive as against the party making it, and must be proved on the trial like any other fact in the case.

Confessions may in certain cases be inferred from silence or conduct, or they may be verbal or in writing. Where they are in writing they are invested with a peculiar weight, and almost invariably suffice to convict the prisoner.

In order to render an extra-judicial confession admissible in evidence it is absolutely essential that it should be in its nature voluntary. If, therefore, it has been extorted by threats or by authoritative statements that in case of confession the party shall be exempt from punishment, it is inadmissible. But a mere adjuration to speak the truth or advice to do so, the mere holding out of an expectation of compromise or assurance of secrecy as to the facts disclosed, or the mere fact that the confession was made under oath, will not render it inadmissible. Neither will the fact of its having been made to a person in authority necessarily exclude it. All these circumstances may, however, when taken in connection with others, go to show that the confession was made under some duress or restraint; and where such is the case it cannot of course be received in evidence. It is for the court in every case, and not for the jury, to say whether a confession is or is not voluntary.

Where a confession has once been obtained by means of hope or fear, confessions subsequently made may be presumed to come from the same motive, and are therefore inadmissible, even though no improper influence in obtaining them be shown. But if it should clearly appear that the original influence has ceased to operate the confessions are admissible. Although a confession may not be receivable in evidence because not voluntary in its nature, yet if it be attended by extraneous facts which show it to be true, such facts, together with the confession, are admissible. Thus, where a person, influenced by threats, confesses the commission of a murder and designates the place where the dead body has been concealed, and subsequently the body is found in the place indicated, this confession, though not voluntary in its nature, is clearly admissible, together with proof of the finding of the body.

No part of a confession will be received in evidence. The whole must be detailed as it was actually made. Where a confession has been duly made before a magistrate, committed to writing, and signed and sworn to by the party making it, it is the better opinion that no parol evidence as to that confession can be received. If, however, there be any informality about the written confession, such parol evidence is admissible.

A confession can only be used as evidence against a party making it, unless, indeed, the crime in question has been committed by a conspiracy or combination of persons. Where this is the case, and the fact of the conspiracy is first clearly proved, the confession of any one of the conspirators is admissible in evidence against the rest of them. (L. L., JR.)

CONFISCATION denotes the taking of private property by the government or State by way of penalty; the seizure of property as forfeited unto the common treasury. The word is derived from the Latin fiscus, which, meaning originally a basket for holding money, came to be used especially for the imperial of

common treasury. In the past the goods of felons were almost always forfeited to the crown by their crime, and the State may therefore be said to have confiscated them. In cases of war the confiscation of the property of the citizens or subjects of the hostile power, wherever found, has been very common; and this has been the case as well with the property of enemies found within the State's limits at the declaration of war as with property subsequently captured on land or at sea by offensive war. It applied moreover to all classes of property-real estate, personal chattels, and mere debts. And it was formerly the law that the mere declaration of war brought about the confiscation; no special act or proclamation was necessary. The opinion of the best authorities, however, and the sentiment of modern times, tends strongly against the right or at least against its exercise, and in favor of the protection of the individual property even of enemies; and it is probable that the mere declaration of war without a special act declaring confiscation would now in no case be held to work confiscation. This modern opinion grows out of the general tendency of the day to mitigate the evils of war, and it is argued that, as the citizens of the hostile State came openly and without objection into the country for a lawful purpose, there was an implied permission to do so, and that they should, in case war arises, be allowed a reasonable time in which to remove themselves and their property from the country. This feeling is also exemplified in the fact that treaties very frequently contain provisions securing mutually such rights to the persons of the respective nations who may be in the other nation at the breaking out of war. Despite the feeling, however, the practice of nations is by no means always in accordance therewith. In America, as early as the war of 1812, the right of Congress to pass such acts of confiscation was expressly recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States, though it was also held that, as no act of Congress had actually declared enemies' goods confiscated, the confiscation which had in that case been attempted by the official act of the United States District Attorney was not valid. At the breaking out of the Mexican war the United States generals were instructed not to interfere with the enemy's private property, except by purchase at fair rates; and during the whole course of the war much respect was shown to private property, although customs duties were levied for the use of the United States in ports occupied by our troops. The right to make levies upon the duly constituted authorities for sums to be used for the maintenance of the invading army seems to be generally recognized as the right of a conqueror. During the late civil war in America, acts of confiscation were passed by both sides. The acts of the Confederate Congress have been held by the Supreme Court of the United States to be utterly void, and that therefore the title of the prior owner was not diverted thereby. Such acts confiscated mere debts as well as personal property; in the case of debts, the debtor paid his debt to the State and received an acquittance which, it was enacted, should be a full and complete defence to any suit for the debt. Acts of confiscation were also passed in the North during the late war by Congress; and cotton was constantly seized and appropriated to the use of the United States; both these proceedings have been held by the Supreme Court of the United States to be a valid exercise of the powers of the Federal government. It seems to be the case that, despite the eloquent arguments against confiscation during times of peace, most nations, during the heat and passion of war, forget their peace utterances and employ confiscation as one means of aiding themselves and injuring the enemy; and in our Mexican war at least it may be observed that the right of private property was less regarded as the war went on and its needs and the passions engendered by it increased. Privateering and the general liability of private property at sea to capture are subjects of a

nature akin to what precedes, but not to be fully gone into here: it may be stated, however, that the exemption of such property from capture is further from recognition than is that of private property on land. (W. M. M.)

CONFLICT OF LAWS. See INTERNATIONAL LAW, PRIVATE.

Edin. ed.).

CONGREGATIONALISM. American CongregaSee Vol. VI. tionalism is in part exotic and in part inP. 238 Am. digenous. The Leyden-Plymouth Church ed (P. 268 brought it hither from John Robinson, who had, under God, received it mainly from Robert Browne through the modifying hands of Henry Barrowe. Browne interpreted the Scriptures as teaching, and implying, a polity in which, as vicegerents of Christ, believers govern themselves in, and as, the local church. This, although theoretically a Christocracy, became practically a democracy. Alarmed, as it would seem, by the anarchic tendencies which the theory developed in poor Browne's lowly and ill-cultured company, Barrowe conceived that a wiser development of the same polity would be that the general membership elect the eldership of wisdome and iudgement endued with the Spirit of God," and then submit to its governance. But this Presbyterianized their Congregationalism to that degree that it was neither the aristocratic former nor the democratic latter-while less the latter than the former. Robinson reduced this incongruity to its minimum by having but a single ruling officer, with a correspondent exaltation of the practical efficiency of the entire body in the control of its own affairs; so that the Mayflower Church, in point of fact, governed itself under the wise advice of its elder.

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The Salem colonists nine years later came over as Nonconformists, not intending to become Separatists. Yet when this wilderness was reached and practical questions pressed, and the impulse of English feeling had grown weaker by three thousand miles of distance, they saw no open way of carrying on their affairs of religion which promised so well as to adopt the Mayflower system; and so they covenanted together into an Independent Church, which they made Congregational by taking the right hand of fellowship from Governor Bradford and the other Plymouth delegates. When, in the next year, Winthrop and his company were leaving Fatherland, they took pains to bid farewell to the Church of England as their "deare mother," and to beg her faithful remembrance as "a Church springing out of her owue bowels.' Yet a like stress of combined opportunity and necessity to that which had swayed Endicott's company, soon drifted them into the same current, until Richard Mather and John Cotton, Thomas Hooker and John Davenport, reasoned out in all its minute particulars-which John Robinson had not been spared to do-the New England way; as a name for which, distinguishing it on the one side from the violent and divisive Separatists, and on the other from the National Church plan, Mr. Cotton found "none fitter" than to call it "Congregationall." Barrowe's dread of democracy-which was, in fact, a dread of the age-with that Presbyterian ruling eldership which had grown out of it, remained, however, upon the system still, and the elders loved to have it so. Nor was it until the days of John Wise, and subsequently of Nathaniel Emmons-when the spirit of the Revolution infused the American air-that the aristocratic element, which for more than a hundred years had weakened and confused the New England Congregationalism, was eliminated, and the system settled squarely down upon the solid and self-consistent basis of that democratic principle which recognizes not only every Church as, under Christ, the peer of every other, and supreme over its own affairs, but every covenanted believer as, with his fellows, the equal sharer of all rights and the equal bearer of all burdens, led by officers chosen from and ordained by themselves.

The American Congregationalism of the present century, the outgrowth of this past, recognizes the right

and duty of believers in any locality, who may both wisely and conveniently meet, worship, and work together, to incorporate themselves on confession of faith, and by mutual covenant, as a church; which is made Congregational by the advising, consenting, and recognizing action of the Congregational churches of the neighborhood, publicly admitting it to their fraternity. Each is officered by a pastor and deacons, having also a general committee to aid in laying out and making efficient its work. Each maintains Sabbath and other religious services; through Sunday-school and suitable social evangelistic endeavors, labors to its best ability for the religious awakening and instruction of the entire community in which it is organized; and by the hands of the American Home Missionary Society, the American Missionary Association, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and kindred agencies, seeks at the same time to do its utmost toward the education and Christianization of our own land and the conversion of the world.

As already suggested, American Congregationalism is distinguished from Independency by adding to the principle of the self-completeness, under the Great Head, of the local church, the compensating principle that since all local churches belong to the one family of the Lord, they necessarily owe each other sisterly love and service. The exercise of this takes the name of the communion of the churches. It is commonly manifested through reciprocal recognition, the exchange of members, and the union of labors. Extraordinarily, it has three functions-viz. (1) welcome, on due warrant, of a new church to the fraternity; (2) advice to a sister church asking for it when in need of light or peace, or both; and (3) if a sister church have been overtaken in a fault, the endeavor to restore it in the spirit of meekness, or, if that effort fail, the final withdrawal of the extended fellowship. And inasmuch as neighbor churches can neither conveniently nor wisely discharge these duties of extraordinary fellowship collectively, some of their officers and members are delegated for that purpose, which delegated assemblies are called ecclesiastical councils. It is the belief of American Congregationalists that scriptural warrant is found for such procedure in that action of the early churches which is recorded in Acts xv. 1-31, as well as in the less direct witness of other passages. The results of such councils, while to be received with an antecedent probability that they will convey the will of God upon the point at issue, have yet neither more nor other than a purely spiritual force; the judgment of the wise and devout Amesius being universally accepted as voicing the truth: ita ut tantum valeat decretum concilii, quantum valet ejus ratio. If a church have cut off a member, as he feels unjustly, and he ask mutual submission to the advice of a council, and be unreasonably refused, he acquires the right to call one for himself, on whose advice sister churches may orderly restore him to their fellowship. Such is called an ex-parte council. Councils are unknown to English Congregationalism. But American Congregationalists regard them as of great value in conserving and making practical and efficient ecclesiastical brotherhood in the departments above named. And it is not usual among them to regard as normally within Congregational fellowship any church or any pastor not formally welcomed thereto by council. Nor do they hold that an ex-pastor is in a condition properly to become a candidate for another pastorate unless he have been dismissed from his previous relation by the advice of a council of neighbor churches, and with its favorable testimony to his good character and his doctrinal and other fitness for continued labor.

It is usual for the Congregational ministers of counties, or equivalent divisions of territory, to meet together from two to four times a year in what are called associations, which are purely ministerial clubs for personal and professional intercourse and culture, yet which, in two respects, have acquired a semi-official relation before the churches. It is common for the candidate for the

ministry to offer himself to the examination of some such association for the judgment of its members, as experts, upon his literary, doctrinal, and spiritual qualifications, and only on their favorable certificate to be welcomed to vacant pulpits. On the other hand, the custom extensively prevails of considering as authentically in good standing in the Congregational ministry only such ministers as maintain unblemished membership in some one of these associations, and are so reported in their annual returns. These several district associations are affiliated in State general bodies meeting once a year.

As pastors are thus in neighborly union through associations, so their churches are joined together in district conferences, usually assembling, by pastors and as many delegates as may be convenient, twice a year for purposes of acquaintance, discussion, counsel, prayer, and praise. These district bodies are also aggregated by delegation in one annual State conference, unless included by joint constitution in the annual gathering of the associations just referred to.

It is a fundamental principle of all these delegated bodies that there shall be no attempt at interference on their part in the way of control of the local churches; each one of which, while open to advice, and liable, on cause, to disfellowship, is yet, under Christ, supreme over its own affairs.

The Congregational churches of the United States have been, since 1871, united in a NATIONAL COUNCIL, which assembles once in three years. It is made up by delegation directly from the local churches of the whole land on the basis of one delegate from every ten churches, and one additional for every fraction of ten over one half; with one delegate also from each State conference, and one for each 10,000 communicants represented in that body, and one for a major fraction thereof; it being intended that such delegates be chosen in equal proportion from ministers and laymen. It met at Oberlin, O., Nov. 15, 1871; at New Haven, Conn., Sept. 30, 1874; at Detroit, Mich., Oct. 17, 1877, and at St. Louis, Mo., Nov. 11, 1880.

The founders of New England Congregationalism were Calvinists, and the churches in 1648, and again in 1680, when by delegation assembled at Cambridge, adopted the Westminster Confession (as slightly modified by the Savoy Synod) as "very Holy, Orthodox, and Judicious." This vote remained unmodified until the Boston council of 1865, in which 2723 Congregational churches in 25 States and Territories, embracing 263,296 members and speaking by the voice of 516 delegates, by unanimous vote substantially reaffirmed it. When, six years after (1871), the National Council was formed at Oberlin, its fundamental constitution included the following doctrinal statement-viz. :

They [the Congregational churches of the United States, by elders and messengers assembled] agree in belief that the Holy Scriptures are the sufficient and only infallible rule of religious faith and practice; their interpretation thereof being in substantial accordance with the great doctrines of the Christian faith, commonly called evangelical, held in our churches from the early times, and sufficiently set forth by former General Councils." Construed strictly by its concluding words, this pledges American Congregationalism still unfalteringly to the old-time Calvinism. Construed more largely by the clause preceding the last, it releases it to a broader fellowship with all evangelical believers; so that since that date the general understanding has been that evangelical Arminians may have ecclesiastical and ministerial standing in the body, always provided that the essentials of the ancient Orthodoxy receive no detriment. The Congregational churches have not reached this doctrinal position without debate and internal conflict. Not all of the children of the first settlers, nor of those immigrants who with them constituted the second English generation on these shores, became church-members. By consequence, by the standing rule, their children could not be baptized. And so it came about