Great Britain and the American Civil War Part 52

[Footnote 1168: Hansard, 3rd Ser., CLXXIV, p. 628, and CLXXV, p. 353, and CLXXVI, p. 2161. In the last of these debates, July 28, 1864, papers were asked for on "Emigration to America," and readily granted by the Government.]

[Footnote 1169: Walpole, _History of Twenty-five Years_, Vol. I, Ch.

VI.]

[Footnote 1170: In the Cabinet, Palmerston (and to some extent Russell) was opposed by Granville and Clarendon (the latter of whom just at this time entered the Cabinet) and by the strong pro-German influence of the Queen. (Fitzmaurice, _Granville_, I, Ch. XVI.)]

[Footnote 1171: Mason Papers. Slidell to Mason, March 13, 1864.]

[Footnote 1172: This came through a letter from Donoughmore to Mason, April 4, 1864, stating that it was private information received by Delane from Mackay, the _Times_ New York correspondent. The expected Southern victory was to come "in about fourteen days." (Mason Papers.)]

[Footnote 1173: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 1174: Mason Papers. Lindsay to Beresford Hope, April 8, 1864.]

[Footnote 1175: _Ibid._, Lindsay to Mason, May 10, 1864.]

[Footnote 1176: July 18, 1864.]

[Footnote 1177: Mason Papers.]

[Footnote 1178: Sample letter in Mason Papers.]

[Footnote 1179: Mason Papers. Mason to Lindsay, May 29, 1864.]

[Footnote 1180: _Ibid._, Lindsay to Mason, May 30, 1864.]

[Footnote 1181: Editorials of May 28 and 30, 1864, painted a dark picture for Northern armies.]

[Footnote 1182: Mason Papers. Sample letter, June I, 1864. Signed by F.W. Tremlett, Hon. Sec.]

[Footnote 1183: _Ibid._, Tremlett to Mason, June 2, 1864.]

[Footnote 1184: State Department, Eng., Vol. 86, No. 705. Adams to Seward, June 2, 1864.]

[Footnote 1185: June 3, 1864.]

[Footnote 1186: Mason Papers. Mason to Slidell, June 8, 1864. Mason wrote to Benjamin that Disraeli had said "to one of his friends and followers" that he would be prepared to bring forward some such motion as that prepared by Lindsay. (Mason's _Mason_, p. 500. To Benjamin, June 9, 1864.) Evidently the friend was Hunter.]

[Footnote 1187: Mason Papers. Slidell to Mason, June 9, 1864.]

[Footnote 1188: _Ibid._, Mason to Slidell, June 29, 1864.]

[Footnote 1189: Walpole, _History of Twenty-five Years_, Vol. I, Ch.

VI.]

[Footnote 1190: Mason's _Mason_, p. 507. Mason to Benjamin, July 14, 1864.]

[Footnote 1191: Mason Papers, July 16, 1864.]

[Footnote 1192: _Ibid._, To Mason, July 17, 1864.]

[Footnote 1193: _The Index_, July 21, 1864, p. 457.]

[Footnote 1194: Mason Papers. Spence to Mason, July 18, 1864.]

[Footnote 1195: Richardson, II, pp. 672-74. Benjamin to Mason, Sept. 20, 1864.]

[Footnote 1196: July 21, 1864.]

CHAPTER XVI

BRITISH CONFIDENCE IN THE SOUTH

After three years of great Northern efforts to subdue the South and of Southern campaigns aimed, first, merely toward resistance, but later involving offensive battles, the Civil War, to European eyes, had reached a stalemate where neither side could conquer the other. To the European neutral the situation was much as in the Great War it appeared to the American neutral in December, 1916, at the end of two years of fighting. In both wars the neutral had expected and had prophesied a short conflict. In both, this had proved to be false prophecy and with each additional month of the Civil War there was witnessed an increase of the forces employed and a psychological change in the people whereby war seemed to have become a normal state of society. The American Civil War, as regards continuity, numbers of men steadily engaged, resources employed, and persistence of the combatants, was the "Great War," to date, of all modern conflicts. Not only British, but nearly all foreign observers were of the opinion by midsummer of 1864, after an apparent check to Grant in his campaign toward Richmond, that all America had become engaged in a struggle from which there was scant hope of emergence by a decisive military victory. There was little knowledge of the steady decline of the resources of the South even though Jefferson Davis in a message to the Confederate Congress in February, 1864, had spoken bitterly of Southern disorganization[1197]. Yet this belief in stalemate in essence still postulated an ultimate Southern victory, for the function of the Confederacy was, after all, to _resist_ until its independence was recognized. Ardent friends of the North in England both felt and expressed confidence in the outcome, but the general att.i.tude of neutral England leaned rather to faith in the powers of indefinite Southern resistance, so loudly voiced by Southern champions.

There was now one element in the situation, however, that hampered these Southern champions. The North was at last fully identified with the cause of emanc.i.p.ation; the South with the perpetuation of slavery. By 1864, it was felt to be impossible to remain silent on this subject and even in the original const.i.tution and address of the Southern Independence a.s.sociation a clause was adopted expressing a hope for the gradual extinction of slavery[1198]. This brought Mason some heartburnings and he wrote to Spence in protest, the latter's reply being that he also agreed that the South ought not to be offered gratuitous advice on what was purely "an internal question," but that the topic was full of difficulties and the clause would have to stand, at least in some modified form. At Southern public meetings, also, there arose a tendency to insert in resolutions similar expressions. "In Manchester," Spence wrote, "Mr. Lees, J.P., and the strongest man on the board, brought forward a motion for an address on this subject. I went up to Manchester purposely to quash it and I did so effectually[1199]."

Northern friends were quick to strike at this weakness in Southern armour; they repeatedly used a phrase, "The Foul Blot," and by mere iteration gave such currency to it that even in Southern meetings it was repeated. _The Index_, as early as February, 1864, felt compelled to meet the phrase and in an editorial, headed "The Foul Blot," argued the error of Southern friends. As long as they could use the word "blot" in characterization of Southern slavery, _The Index_ felt that there could be no effective British push for Southern independence and it a.s.serted that slavery, in the sense in which England understood it, did not exist in the Confederacy.

"... It is truly horrible to reduce human beings to the condition of cattle, to breed them, to sell them, and otherwise dispose of them, as cattle. But is it defending such practices to say that the South does none of these things, but that on the contrary, both in theory and in practice, she treats the negro as a fellow-creature, with a soul to be saved, with feelings to be respected, though in the social order in a subordinate place, and of an intellectual organization which requires guardians.h.i.+p with mutual duties and obligations? This system is called slavery, because it developed itself out of an older and very different one of that name, but for this the South is not to blame.

"But of this the friends of the South may be a.s.sured, that so long as they make no determined effort to relieve the Southern character from this false drapery, they will never gain for it that respect, that confidence in the rect.i.tude of Southern motives, that active sympathy, which can alone evoke effective a.s.sistance.... The best a.s.surance you can give that the destinies of the negro race are safe in Southern hands is, not that the South will repent and reform, but that she has consistently and conscientiously been the friend and benefactor of that race.

"It is, therefore, always with pain that we hear such expressions as 'the foul blot,' and similar ones, fall from the lips of earnest promoters of Confederate Independence. As a concession they are useless; as a confession they are untrue.... Thus the Southerner may retort as we have seen that an Englishman would retort for his country. He might say the South is proud, and of nothing more proud than this--not that she has slaves, but that she has treated them as slaves never were treated before, that she has used power as no nation ever used it under similar circ.u.mstances, and that she has solved mercifully and humanely a most difficult problem which has elsewhere defied solution save in blood. Or he might use the unspoken reflection of an honest Southerner at hearing much said of 'the foul blot': 'It was indeed a dark and d.a.m.nable blot that England left us with, and it required all the efforts of Southern Christianity to pale it as it now is[1200].'"

In 1862 and to the fall of 1863, _The Index_ had declared that slavery was not an issue in the war; now its defence of the "domestic inst.i.tution" of the South, repeatedly made in varying forms, was evidence of the great effect in England of Lincoln's emanc.i.p.ation edicts. _The Index_ could not keep away from the subject. In March, quotations were given from the _Reader_, with adverse comments, upon a report of a controversy aroused in scientific circles by a paper read before the Anthropological Society of London. James Hunt was the author and the paper, ent.i.tled "The Negro's Place in Nature," aroused the contempt of Huxley who criticized it at the meeting as unscientific and placed upon it the "stigma of public condemnation." The result was a fine controversy among the scientists which could only serve to emphasize the belief that slavery was indeed an issue in the American War and that the South was on the defensive. Winding up a newspaper duel with Hunt who emerged rather badly mauled, Huxley a.s.serted "the North is justified in any expenditure of blood or treasure which shall eradicate a system hopelessly inconsistent with the moral elevation, the political freedom, or the economical progress of the American people[1201]...."

Embarra.s.sment caused by the "Foul Blot" issue, the impossibility to many sincere Southern friends of accepting the view-point of _The Index_, acted as a check upon the holding of public meetings and prevented the carrying out of that intensive public campaign launched by Spence and intended to be fostered by the Southern Independence a.s.sociation. By the end of June, 1864, there was almost a complete cessation of Southern meetings, not thereafter renewed, except spasmodically for a brief period in the fall just before the Presidential election in America[1202]. Northern meetings were continuous throughout the whole period of the war but were less frequent in 1864 than in 1863. They were almost entirely of two types--those held by anti-slavery societies and religious bodies and those organized for, or by, working men. An a.n.a.lysis of those recorded in the files of _The Liberator_, and in the reports sent by Adams to Seward permits the following cla.s.sification[1203]:

YEAR. NUMBER. CHARACTER.

ANTI-SLAVERY AND RELIGIOUS WORKING-MEN.

1860 3 3 - 1861 7 7 - 1862 16 11 5 1863 82 26 56 1864 21 10 11 1865 5 4 1

Many persons took part in these meetings as presiding officers or as speakers and movers of resolutions; among them those appearing with frequency were George Thompson, Rev. Dr. Cheever, Rev. Newman Hall, John Bright, Professor Newman, Mr. Bagley, M.P., Rev. Francis Bishop, P.A.

Taylor, M.P., William Evans, Thomas Bayley Potter, F.W. Chesson and Mason Jones. While held in all parts of England and Scotland the great majority of meetings were held in London and in the manufacturing districts with Manchester as a centre. From the first the old anti-slavery orator of the 'thirties, George Thompson, had been the most active speaker and was credited by all with having given new life to the moribund emanc.i.p.ation sentiment of Great Britain[1204]. Thompson a.s.serted that by the end of 1863 there was a "vigilant, active and energetic" anti-slavery society in almost every great town or city[1205]. Among the working-men, John Bright was without question the most popular advocate of the Northern cause, but there were many others, not named in the preceding list, constantly active and effective[1206].

Forster, in the judgment of many, was the most influential friend of the North in Parliament, but Bright, also an influence in Parliament, rendered his chief service in moulding the opinion of Lancas.h.i.+re and became to American eyes their great English champion, a view attested by the extraordinary act of President Lincoln in pardoning, on the appeal of Bright, and in his honour, a young Englishman named Alfred Rubery, who had become involved in a plot to send out from the port of San Francisco, a Confederate "privateer" to prey on Northern commerce[1207].

This record of the activities of Northern friends and organizations, the relative subsidence of their efforts in the latter part of 1864, thus indicating their confidence in Northern victory, the practical cessation of public Southern meetings, are nevertheless no proof that the bulk of English opinion had greatly wavered in its faith in Southern powers of resistance. The Government, it is true, was better informed and was exceedingly anxious to tread gently in relations with the North, the more so as there was now being voiced by the public in America a sentiment of extreme friends.h.i.+p for Russia as the "true friend" in opposition to the "unfriendly neutrality" of Great Britain and France[1208]. It was a period of many minor irritations, arising out of the blockade, inflicted by America on British interests, but to these Russell paid little attention except to enter formal protests. He wrote to Lyons:

"I do not want to pick a quarrel out of our many just causes of complaint. But it will be as well that Lincoln and Seward should see that we are long patient, and do nothing to distract their attention from the arduous task they have so wantonly undertaken[1209]."

Lyons was equally desirous of avoiding frictions. In August he thought that the current of political opinion was running against the re-election of Lincoln, noting that the Northern papers were full of expressions favouring an armistice, but pointed out that neither the "peace party" nor the advocates of an armistice ever talked of any solution of the war save on the basis of re-union. Hence Lyons strongly advised that "the quieter England and France were just at this moment the better[1210]." Even the suggested armistice was not thought of, he stated, as extending to a relaxation of the blockade. Of military probabilities, Lyons professed himself to be no judge, but throughout all his letters there now ran, as for some time previously, a note of warning as to the great power and high determination of the North.