Great Britain and the American Civil War Part 11

Indeed, the cause of Seward's explanation to Lyons was the receipt of a despatch from Adams, dated June 28, in which the latter had reported that all was now smooth sailing. He had told Russell that the knowledge in Washington of the result of their previous interviews had brought satisfaction, and Russell, for his part, said that Lyons had "learned, through another member of the diplomatic corps, that no further expression of opinion on the subject in question would be necessary[232]." This referred, presumably, to the question of British intention, for the future, in relation to the Proclamation of Neutrality. Adams wrote: "This led to the most frank and pleasant conversation which I have yet had with his lordship.... I added that I believed the popular feeling in the United States would subside the moment that all the later action on this side was known.... My own reception has been all that I could desire. I attach value to this, however, only as it indicates the establishment of a policy that will keep us at peace during the continuance of the present convulsion." In reply to Adams' despatch, Seward wrote on July 21, the day after his interview with Lyons, arguing at great length the American view that the British Proclamation of Neutrality in a domestic quarrel was not defensible in international law. There was not now, nor later, any yielding on this point. But, for the present, this was intended for Adams' eye alone, and Seward prefaced his argument by a disclaimer, much as stated to Lyons, of any ill-will to Great Britain:

"I may add, also, for myself, that however otherwise I may at any time have been understood, it has been an earnest and profound solicitude to avert from foreign war; that alone has prompted the emphatic and sometimes, perhaps, impa.s.sioned remonstrances I have hitherto made against any form or measure of recognition of the insurgents by the government of Great Britain. I write in the same spirit now; and I invoke on the part of the British government, as I propose to exercise on my own, the calmness which all counsellors ought to practise in debates which involve the peace and happiness of mankind[233]."

Diplomatic correspondence couched in the form of platform oratory leads to the suspicion that the writer is thinking, primarily, of the ultimate publication of his despatches. Thus Seward seems to have been laying the ground for a denial that he had ever developed a foolish foreign war policy. History pins him to that folly. But in another respect the interview with Lyons on July 20 and the letter to Adams of the day following overthrow for both Seward and for the United States the accusations sometimes made that it was the Northern disaster at Bull Run, July 21, in the first pitched battle with the South, which made more temperate the Northern tone toward foreign powers[234]. It is true that the despatch to Adams was not actually sent until July 26, but internal evidence shows it to have been written on the 21st before there was any news from the battle-field, and the interview with Lyons on the 20th proves that the military set-back had no influence on Seward's friendly expressions. Moreover, these expressions officially made were but a delayed voicing of a determination of policy arrived at many weeks earlier. The chronology of events and despatches cited in this chapter will have shown that the refusal of Lincoln to follow Seward's leadership, and the consequent lessening of the latter's "high tone,"

preceded any news whatever from England, lightening the first impressions. The Administration at Washington did not on May 21, even know that England had issued a Proclamation of Neutrality; it knew merely of Russell's statement that one would have to be issued; and the friendly explanations of Russell to Adams were not received in Washington until the month following.

In itself, Seward's "foreign war panacea" policy does not deserve the place in history usually accorded it as a moment of extreme crisis in British-American relations. There was never any danger of war from it, for Lincoln nipped the policy in the bud. The public excitement in America over the Queen's Proclamation was, indeed, intense; but this did not alter the Governmental att.i.tude. In England all that the public knew was this American irritation and clamour. The London press expressed itself a bit more cautiously, for the moment, merely defending the necessity of British neutrality[235]. But if regarded from the effect upon British Ministers the incident was one of great, possibly even vital, importance in the relations of the two countries. Lyons had been gravely anxious to the point of alarm. Russell, less acutely alarmed, was yet seriously disturbed. Both at Washington and in London the suspicion of Seward lasted throughout the earlier years of the war, and to British Ministers it seemed that at any moment he might recover leadership and revert to a dangerous mood. British att.i.tude toward America was affected in two opposite ways; Britain was determined not to be bullied, and Russell himself sometimes went to the point of arrogance in answer to American complaints; this was an unfortunate result. But more fortunate, and _also a result_, was the British Government's determination to step warily in the American conflict and to give no just cause, unless on due consideration of policy, for a rupture of relations with the United States. Seward's folly in May of 1861, from every angle but a short-lived "brain-storm," served America well in the first years of her great crisis.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 197: See _ante_, p. 80.]

[Footnote 198: Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, II, p. 378. Seward to Weed, December 27, 1861.]

[Footnote 199: _Ibid._, p. 355. Weed's letter was on the _Trent_ affair, but he went out of his way to depict Seward as attempting a bit of humour with Newcastle.]

[Footnote 200: Schleiden, a native of Schleswig, was educated at the University of Berlin, and entered the Danish customs service. In the German revolution of 1848 he was a delegate from Schleswig-Holstein to the Frankfort Parliament. After the failure of that revolution he withdrew to Bremen and in 1853 was sent by that Republic to the United States as Minister. By 1860 he had become one of the best known and socially popular of the Washington diplomatic corps, holding intimate relations with leading Americans both North and South. His reports on events preceding and during the Civil War were examined in the archives of Bremen in 1910 by Dr. Ralph H. Lutz when preparing his doctor's thesis, "Die Beziehungen zwischen Deutschland und den Vereinigten Staaten wahrend des Sezessionskrieges" (Heidelberg, 1911). My facts with regard to Schleiden are drawn in part from this thesis, in part from an article by him, "Rudolph Schleiden and the Visit to Richmond, April 25, 1861," printed in the _Annual Report of the American Historical a.s.sociation_ for 1915, pp. 207-216. Copies of some of Schleiden's despatches are on deposit in the Library of Congress among the papers of Carl Schurz. Through the courtesy of Mr. Frederic Bancroft, who organized the Schurz papers, I have been permitted to take copies of a few Schleiden dispatches relating to the visit to Richmond, an incident apparently unknown to history until Dr. Lutz called attention to it.]

[Footnote 201: This is Bancroft's expression. _Seward_, II, p. 118.]

[Footnote 202: Lincoln, _Works_, II, 29.]

[Footnote 203: _Ibid._, p. 30.]

[Footnote 204: For references to this whole matter of Schleiden's visit to Richmond see _ante_, p. 116, note 1.]

[Footnote 205: _U.S. Messages and Doc.u.ments_, 1861-2, p. 82. This, and other despatches have been examined at length in the previous chapter in relation to the American protest on the Queen's Proclamation of Neutrality. In the present chapter they are merely noted again in their bearing on Seward's "foreign war policy."]

[Footnote 206: Quoted by Lutz, _Am. Hist. a.s.sn. Rep_. 1915, p. 210.]

[Footnote 207: _U.S. Messages and Doc.u.ments_, 1861-2, p. 80. This despatch was read by Seward on April 8 to W. H. Russell, correspondent of the _Times_, who commented that it contained some elements of danger to good relations, but it is difficult to see to what he could have had objection.--Russell, _My Diary_, I, p. 103. ]

[Footnote 208: Russell Papers.]

[Footnote 209: Bancroft, _Seward_, II, p. 169.]

[Footnote 210: Yet at this very time Seward was suggesting, May 14, to Prussia, Great Britain, France, Russia and Holland a joint naval demonstration with America against j.a.pan because of anti-foreign demonstrations in that country. This has been interpreted as an attempt to tie European powers to the United States in such a way as to hamper any friendly inclination they may have entertained toward the Confederacy (Treat, _j.a.pan and the United States_, 1853-1921, pp. 49-50.

Also Dennet, "Seward's Far Eastern Policy," in _Am. Hist. Rev_., Vol.

XXVIII, No. 1. Dennet, however, also regards Seward's overture as in harmony with his determined policy in the Far East.) Like Seward's overture, made a few days before, to Great Britain for a convention to guarantee the independence of San Domingo (F.O., Am., Vol. 763, No. 196, Lyons to Russell, May 12, 1861) the proposal on j.a.pan seems to me to have been an erratic feeling-out of international att.i.tude while in the process of developing a really serious policy--the plunging of America into a foreign war.]

[Footnote 211: _U.S. Messages and Doc.u.ments_, 1861-2, p. 88. The exact facts of Lincoln's alteration of Despatch No. 10, though soon known in diplomatic circles, were not published until the appearance in 1890 of Nicolay and Hay's _Lincoln_, where the text of a portion of the original draft, with Lincoln's changes were printed (IV, p. 270). Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy in Lincoln's Cabinet, published a short book in 1874, _Lincoln and Seward_, in which the story was told, but without dates and so vaguely that no attention was directed to it.

Apparently the matter was not brought before the Cabinet and the contents of the despatch were known only to Lincoln, Seward, and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Sumner.]

[Footnote 212: C.F. Adams, "Seward and the Declaration of Paris," p. 21.

Reprint from _Ma.s.s. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, XLVI, pp. 23-81.]

[Footnote 213: F.O., Am., Vol. 764, No. 206. Confidential.]

[Footnote 214: Russell Papers. This letter has been printed, in part, in Newton, _Lyons_, I, 41.]

[Footnote 215: Lyons Papers.]

[Footnote 216: _Ibid._, Lyons to Russell, May 23, 1861.]

[Footnote 217: F.O., Am., Vol. 764, No. 209, Confidential, Lyons to Russell, May 23, 1861. A brief "extract" from this despatch was printed in the British _Parliamentary Papers_, 1862, _Lords_, Vol. XXV.

"Correspondence on Civil War in the United States," No. 48. The "extract" in question consists of two short paragraphs only, printed, without any indication of important elisions, in each of the paragraphs. ]

[Footnote 218: Bancroft, _Seward_, II, p. 174. ]

[Footnote 219: Lutz, "Notes." The source of Schleiden's information is not given in his despatch. He was intimate with many persons closely in touch with events, especially with Sumner, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and with Blair, a member of the Cabinet.]

[Footnote 220: _Ibid._, Schleiden to Republic of Bremen, May 27, 1861.]

[Footnote 221: Bancroft, _Seward_, II, p. 179, sets the date as June 8 when Seward's instructions for England and France show that he had "recovered his balance." This is correct for the change in tone of despatches, but the acceptance of Lincoln's policy must have been immediate. C.F. Adams places the date for Seward's complete change of policy much later, describing his "war mania" as lasting until the Northern defeat of Bull Run, July 21. I think this an error, and evidence that it is such appears later in the present chapter. See Charles Francis Adams, "Seward and the Declaration of Paris," _Ma.s.s.

Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, XLVI, pp. 23-81.]

[Footnote 222: Russell Papers.]

[Footnote 223: Lyons Papers, May 21, 1861.]

[Footnote 224: _Ibid._, Russell to Lyons, May 25, 1861.]

[Footnote 225: F.O., Am., Vol. 765, No. 253.]

[Footnote 226: _Ibid._, No. 263, Lyons to Russell, June 8, 1861.]

[Footnote 227: See _ante_, p. 106.]

[Footnote 228: See _ante_, p. 102. Bancroft, _Seward_, II, p. 181, using Seward's description to Adams _(U.S. Messages and Doc.u.ments_, 1861-2, p.

106) of this interview expands upon the Secretary's skill in thus preventing a joint notification by England and France of their intention to act together. He rightly characterizes Seward's tactics as "diplomatic skill of the best quality." But in Lyons' report the emphasis is placed upon Seward's courtesy in argument, and Lyons felt that the knowledge of British-French joint action had been made sufficiently clear by his taking Mercier with him and by their common though unofficial representation to Seward.]

[Footnote 229: Russell Papers. To Russell.]

[Footnote 230: _Ibid_, To Russell. Lyons' source of information was not revealed.]

[Footnote 231: _Ibid._, To Russell.]

[Footnote 232: _U.S. Messages and Doc.u.ments, 1861-2_, p. 110.]

[Footnote 233: _Ibid._, p. 118. To Adams.]

[Footnote 234: C.F. Adams, "Seward and the Declaration of Paris." p. 29, and so argued by the author throughout this monograph. I think this an error.]

[Footnote 235: The _Spectator_, friend of the North, argued, June 15, 1861, that the Queen's Proclamation was the next best thing for the North to a definite British alliance. Southern privateers could not now be obtained from England. And the United States was surely too proud to accept direct British aid.]