Great Britain and the American Civil War Part 37

[Footnote 815: Gladstone Papers. The memorandum here preserved has the additional interest of frequent marginal comments by Gladstone.]

[Footnote 816: The letters of "Historicus" early attracted, in the case of the _Trent_, favourable attention and respect. As early as 1863 they were put out in book form to satisfy a public demand: _Letters by Historicus on some questions of International Law_, London, 1863.]

[Footnote 817: The _Times_, Nov. 7, 1862. The letter was dated Nov. 4.]

[Footnote 818: _Parliamentary Papers_, 1863, Lords, Vol. XXIX. "Despatch respecting the Civil War in North America." Russell to Cowley, Nov.

13, 1862.]

[Footnote 819: For substance of the Russian answer to France see _ante_, p. 59, _note_ 4. D'Oubril reported Drouyn de Lhuys as unconvinced that the time was inopportune but as stating he had not expected Russia to join. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs was irritated at an article on his overtures that had appeared in the _Journal de Petersbourg_, and thought himself unfairly treated by the Russian Government. (Russian Archives. D'Oubril to F.O., Nov. 15, 1862 (N.S.), Nos. 1908 and 1912.)]

[Footnote 820: Maxwell, _Clarendon_, II, 268. The letter, as printed, is dated Nov. 11, and speaks of the Cabinet of "yesterday." This appears to be an error. Gladstone's account is of a two-days' discussion on Nov. 11 and 12, with the decision reached and draft of reply to France outlined on the latter date. The article in the _Times_, referred to by Lewis, appeared on Nov. 13.]

[Footnote 821: Morley, _Gladstone_, II, 85.]

[Footnote 822: _Parliamentary Papers_, 1863, _Lords_, Vol. XXIX.

"Despatch respecting the Civil War in North America." Russell to Cowley, Nov. 13, 1862.]

[Footnote 823: F.O., Russia, Vol. 609, No. 407. Napier to Russell. The same day Napier wrote giving an account of an interview between the French Minister and Prince Gortchakoff in which the latter stated Russia would take no chances of offending the North. _Ibid._, No. 408.]

[Footnote 824: Morley, _Gladstone_, II ,85. To his wife, Nov. 13, 1862.

Even after the answer to France there was some agitation in the Ministry due to the receipt from Stuart of a letter dated Oct. 31, in which it was urged that this was the most opportune moment for mediation because of Democratic successes in the elections. He enclosed also an account of a "horrible military reprisal" by the Federals in Missouri alleging that _ten_ Southerners had been executed because of _one_ Northerner seized by Southern guerillas. (Russell Papers.) The Russell Papers contain a series of signed or initialled notes in comment, all dated Nov. 14. "W."

(Westbury?) refers to the "horrible atrocities," and urges that, if Russia will join, the French offer should be accepted. Gladstone wrote, "I had supposed the question to be closed." "C.W." (Charles Wood), "This is horrible; but does not change my opinion of the course to be pursued." "C.P.V." (C.P. Villiers) wrote against accepting the French proposal, and commented that Stuart had always been a strong partisan of the South.]

[Footnote 825: Lyons Papers. Hammond to Lyons, Nov. 15, 1862.]

[Footnote 826: The _Times_, Nov. 15, 1862.]

[Footnote 827: The _Herald_, Nov. 14, 1862. This paper was listed by Hotze of _The Index_, as on his "pay roll." Someone evidently was trying to earn his salary.]

[Footnote 828: Nov. 15, 1862. It is difficult to reconcile Russell's editorials either with his later protestations of early conviction that the North would win or with the belief expressed by Americans that he was _constantly_ pro-Northern in sentiment, e.g., Henry Adams, in _A Cycle of Adams' Letters_, I, 14l.]

[Footnote 829: _The Index_, Nov. 20, 1862, p. 56.]

[Footnote 830: _Ibid._, Jan. 15, 1863, p. 191.]

[Footnote 831: _Ibid._, Jan. 22, 1863, p. 201.]

[Footnote 832: _Ibid._, May 28, 1863, p. 72.]

[Footnote 833: Mason Papers. To Mason, Nov. 28, 1862.]

[Footnote 834: Pickett Papers. Slidell to Benjamin, Nov. 29, 1862. This despatch is not in Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the Confederacy_, and ill.u.s.trates the gaps in that publication.]

[Footnote 835: Rhodes, IV, 347. Bright to Sumner, Dec. 6, 1862.]

[Footnote 836: Goldwin Smith told of this plan in 1904, in a speech at a banquet in Ottawa. He had destroyed Gladstone's letter outlining it.

_The Ottawa Sun_, Nov. 16, 1904.]

[Footnote 837: Almost immediately after Lyons' return to Was.h.i.+ngton, Stoeckl learned from him, and from Mercier, also, that England and France planned to offer mediation and that if this were refused the South would be recognized. Stoeckl commented to the Foreign Office: "What good will this do?" It would not procure cotton unless the ports were forced open and a clear rupture made with the North. He thought England understood this, and still hesitated. Stoeckl went on to urge that if all European Powers joined England and France they would be merely tails to the kite and that Russia would be one of the tails. This would weaken the Russian position in Europe as well as forfeit her special relations.h.i.+p with the United States. He was against any _joint_ European action. (Russian Archives, Stoeckl to F.O., Nov. 5-17, 1862, No. 2002.) Gortchakoff wrote on the margin of this despatch: "Je trouve son opinion tres sage." If Stoeckl understood Lyons correctly then the latter had left England still believing that his arguments with Russell had been of no effect. When the news reached Was.h.i.+ngton of England's refusal of the French offer, Stoeckl reported Lyons as much surprised (_Ibid._, to F.O., Nov. 19-Dec. 1, 1862, No. 2170).]

[Footnote 838: _Parliamentary Papers_, 1832, _Commons_, Vol. LXXII, "Correspondence relating to the Civil War in the United States of North America." Nos. 47 and 50. Received Nov. 30 and Dec. 11. Mercier, who had been Stuart's informant about political conditions in New York, felt that he had been deceived by the Democrats. F.O., Am., Vol. 784, No. 38.

Confidential, Lyons to Russell, Jan. 13, 1863.]

[Footnote 839: F.O., Am., Vol. 840, No. 518. Moore (Richmond) to Lyons, Dec. 4, 1862. Also F.O., Am., Vol. 844, No. 135. Bunch (Charleston) to Russell, Dec. 13, 1862. Bunch wrote of the "Const.i.tutional hatred and jealousy of England, which are as strongly developed here as at the North. Indeed, our known antipathy to Slavery adds another element to Southern dislike."]

[Footnote 840: Bigelow, _Retrospections_, I, 579, Dec. 2, 1862. Bigelow was Consul-General at Paris, and was the most active of the Northern confidential agents abroad. A journalist himself, he had close contacts with the foreign press. It is interesting that he reported the Continental press as largely dependent for its American news and judgments upon the British press which specialized in that field, so that Continental tone was but a reflection of the British tone. _Ibid._, p. 443. Bigelow to Seward, Jan. 7, 1862.]

[Footnote 841: Lyons placed a high estimate on Adams' abilities. He wrote: "Mr. Adams shows more calmness and good sense than any of the American Ministers abroad." (Russell Papers. To Russell, Dec.

12, 1862.)]

[Footnote 842: Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, Dec. 22. 1862.]

[Footnote 843: Lyons Papers. Russell to Lyons, Jan. 3, 1863.]

[Footnote 844: December 1, Brunow related an interview in which Russell expressed his "satisfaction" that England and Russia were in agreement that the moment was not opportune for a joint offer to the United States. Russell also stated that it was unfortunate France had pressed her proposal without a preliminary confidential sounding and understanding between the Powers; the British Government saw no reason for changing its att.i.tude. (Russian Archives. Brunow to F.O., Dec. 1, 1862 (N.S.), No. 1998.) There is no evidence in the despatch that Brunow knew of Russell's preliminary "soundings" of France.]

[Footnote 845: Various writers have treated Roebuck's motion in 1863 as the "crisis" of intervention. In Chapter XIV the error of this will be shown.]

CHAPTER XII

THE EMANc.i.p.aTION PROCLAMATION

The finality of the British Cabinet decision in November, 1862, relative to proposals of mediation or intervention was not accepted at the moment though time was to prove its permanence. The British press was full of suggestions that the first trial might more gracefully come from France since that country was presumed to be on more friendly terms with the United States[846]. Others, notably Slidell at Paris, held the same view, and on January 8, 1863, Slidell addressed a memorandum to Napoleon III, asking separate recognition of the South. The next day, Napoleon dictated an instruction to Mercier offering friendly mediation in courteous terms but with no hint of an armistice or of an intended recognition of the South[847]. Meanwhile, Mercier had again approached Lyons alleging that he had been urged by Greeley, editor of the _New York Tribune_, to make an isolated French offer, but that he felt this would be contrary to the close harmony hitherto maintained in French-British relations. But Mercier added that if Lyons was disinclined to a proposal of mediation, he intended to advise his Government to give him authority to act alone[848]. Lyons made no comment to Mercier but wrote to Russell, "I certainly desire that the Settlement of the Contest should be made without the intervention of England."

A week later the Russian Minister, Stoeckl, also came to Lyons desiring to discover what would be England's att.i.tude if Russia should act alone, or perhaps with France, leaving England out of a proposal to the North[849]. This was based on the supposition that the North, weary of war, might ask the good offices of Russia. Lyons replied that he did not think that contingency near and otherwise evaded Stoeckl's questions; but he was somewhat suspicious, concluding his report, "I cannot quite forget that Monsieur Mercier and Monsieur de Stoeckl had agreed to go to Richmond together last Spring[850]." The day after this despatch was written Mercier presented, February 3, the isolated French offer and on February 6 received Seward's reply couched in argumentative, yet polite language, but positively declining the proposal[851]. Evidently Lyons was a bit disquieted by the incident; but in London, Napoleon's overture to America was officially stated to be un.o.bjectionable, as indeed was required by the implications of the reply of November 13, to France.

Russell, on February 14, answered Lyons' communications in a letter marked "Seen by Lord Palmerston and the Queen":

"Her Majesty's Government have no wish to interfere at present in any way in the Civil War. If France were to offer good offices or mediation, Her Majesty's Government would feel no jealousy or repugnance to such a course on the part of France alone[852]."

The writing of this despatch antedated the knowledge that France had already acted at Was.h.i.+ngton, and does not necessarily indicate any governmental feeling of a break in previous close relations with France on the American question. Yet this was indubitably the case and became increasingly evident as time pa.s.sed. Russell's despatch to Lyons of February 14 appears rather to be evidence of the effect of the debates in Parliament when its sessions were resumed on February 5, for in both Lords and Commons there was given a hearty and nearly unanimous support of the Government's decision to make no overture for a cessation of the conflict in America. Derby clearly outlined the two possible conditions of mediation; first, when efforts by the North to subdue the South had practically ceased; and second, if humane interests required action by neutral states, in which case the intervening parties must be fully prepared to use force. Neither condition had arrived and strict neutrality was the wise course. Disraeli also approved strict neutrality but caustically referred to Gladstone's Newcastle speech and sharply attacked the Cabinet's uncertain and changeable policy--merely a party speech. Russell upheld the Government's decision but went out of his way to a.s.sert that the entire subjugation of the South would be a calamity to the United States itself, since it would require an unending use of force to hold the South in submission[853]. Later, when news of the French offer at Was.h.i.+ngton had been received, the Government was attacked in the Lords by an undaunted friend of the South, Lord Campbell, on the ground of a British divergence from close relations with France. Russell, in a brief reply, rea.s.serted old arguments that the time had "not yet" come, but now declared that events seemed to show the possibility of a complete Northern victory and added with emphasis that recognition of the South could justly be regarded by the North as an "unfriendly act[854]."

Thus Parliament and Cabinet were united against meddling in America, basing this att.i.tude on neutral duty and national interests, and with barely a reference to the new policy of the North toward slavery, declared in the emanc.i.p.ation proclamations of September 22, 1862, and January 1, 1863, Had these great doc.u.ments then no favourable influence on British opinion and action? Was the Northern determination to root out the inst.i.tution of slavery, now clearly announced, of no effect in winning the favour of a people and Government long committed to a world policy against that inst.i.tution? It is here necessary to review early British opinion, the facts preceding the first emanc.i.p.ation proclamation, and to examine its purpose in the mind of Lincoln.

Before the opening of actual military operations, while there was still hope of some peaceful solution, British opinion had been with the North on the alleged ground of sympathy with a free as against a slave-owning society. But war once begun the disturbance to British trade interests and Lincoln's repeated declarations that the North had no intention of destroying slavery combined to offer an excuse and a reason for an almost complete s.h.i.+ft of British opinion. The abolitionists of the North and the extreme anti-slavery friends in England, relatively few in number in both countries, still sounded the note of "slavery the cause of the war," but got little hearing. Nevertheless it was seen by thoughtful minds that slavery was certain to have a distinct bearing on the position of Great Britain when the war was concluded. In May, 1861, Palmerston declared that it would be a happy day when "we could succeed in putting an end to this unnatural war between the two sections of our North American cousins," but added that the difficulty for England was that "_We_ could not well mix ourselves up with the acknowledgment of slavery[855]...."

Great Britain's long-a.s.serted abhorrence of slavery caused, indeed, a perplexity in governmental att.i.tude. But this looked to the final outcome of an independent South--an outcome long taken for granted.

Debate on the existing moralities of the war very soon largely disappeared from British discussion and in its place there cropped out, here and there, expressions indicative of anxiety as to whether the war could long continue without a "servile insurrection," with all its attendant horrors.

On July 6, 1861, the _Economist_, reviewing the progress of the war preparations to date, a.s.serted that it was universally agreed no restoration of the Union was possible and answered British fears by declaring it was impossible to believe that even the American madness could contemplate a servile insurrection. The friendly _Spectator_ also discussed the matter and repeatedly. It was a mistaken idea, said this journal, that there could be no enfranchis.e.m.e.nt without a slave rising, but should this occur, "the right of the slave to regain his freedom, even if the effort involve slaughter, is as clear as any other application of the right of self-defence[856]." Yet English abolitionists should not urge the slave to act for himself, since "as war goes on and all compromise fails the American mind will harden under the white heat and determine that the _cause_ of all conflict must cease." That slavery, in spite of any declaration by Lincoln or Northern denial of a purpose to attack it--denials which disgusted Harriet Martineau--was in real fact the basic cause of the war, seemed to her as clear as anything in reason[857]. She had no patience with English anti-slavery people who believed Northern protestations, and she did not express concern over the horrors of a possible servile insurrection.

Nevertheless this spectre was constantly appearing. Again the _Spectator_ sought to allay such fears; but yet again also proclaimed that even such a contingency was less fearful than the consolidation of the slave-power in the South[858].

Thus a servile insurrection was early and frequently an argument which pro-Northern friends were compelled to meet. In truth the bulk of the British press was constant in holding up this bogie to its readers, even going to the point of weakening its argument of the impossibility of a Northern conquest of the South by appealing to history to show that England in her two wars with America had had a comparatively easy time in the South, thus postulating the real danger of some "negro Garibaldi calling his countrymen to arms[859]." Nor was this fear merely a pretended one. It affected all cla.s.ses and partisans of both sides. Even official England shared in it; January 20, 1862, Lyons wrote, "The question is rapidly tending towards the issue either of peace and a recognition of the separation, or a Proclamation of Emanc.i.p.ation and the raising of a servile insurrection[860]." At nearly the same time Russell, returning to Gladstone a letter from Sumner to Cobden, expressed his sorrow "that the President intends a war of emanc.i.p.ation, meaning thereby, I fear, a war of greater desolation than has been since the revival of letters[861]." John Stuart Mill, with that clear logic which appealed to the more intelligent reader, in an able examination of the underlying causes and probable results of the American conflict, excused the Northern leaders for early denial of a purpose to attack slavery, but expressed complete confidence that even these leaders by now understood the "almost certain results of success in the present conflict" (the extinction of slavery) and prophesied that "if the writers who so severely criticize the present moderation of the Free-soilers are desirous to see the war become an abolition war, it is probable that if the war lasts long enough they will be gratified[862]."

John Bright, reaching a wider public, in speech after speech, expressed faith that the people of the North were "marching on, as I believe, to its [slavery's] entire abolition[863]."

Pro-Southern Englishmen pictured the horrors of an "abolition war," and believed the picture true; strict neutrals, like Lyons, feared the same development; friends of the North pushed aside the thought of a "negro terror," yet even while hoping and declaring that the war would destroy slavery, could not escape from apprehensions of an event that appeared inevitable. Everywhere, to the British mind, it seemed that emanc.i.p.ation was necessarily a provocative to servile insurrection, and this belief largely affected the reception of the emanc.i.p.ation proclamation--a fact almost wholly lost sight of in historical writing.