Great Britain and the American Civil War Part 4

Like a good diplomat Lyons was merely pushing the argument for all it was worth, hoping to prevent an injury to his country, yet if that injury did come (provided it were sanctioned by the law of nations) he did not see in it an injury sufficient to warrant precipitate action by Great Britain. When indeed the Southern capture of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbour finally brought the actual clash of arms, Lyons expressed himself with regard to other elements in the struggle previously neglected in his correspondence. On April 15 describing to Russell the fall of Sumter, he stated that civil war had at last begun.

The North he believed to be very much more powerful than the South, the South more "eager" and united as yet, but, he added, "the taint of slavery will render the cause of the South loathsome to the civilized world." It was true that "commercial intercourse with the cotton States is of vital importance to manufacturing nations[124]...." but Lyons was now facing an actual situation rather than a possible one, and as will be seen later, he soon ceased to insist that an interruption of this "commercial intercourse" gave reasonable ground for recognition of the South.

With the fall of Fort Sumter and the European recognition that a civil war was actually under way in America, a large number of new and vexing problems was presented to Russell. His treatment of them furnishes the subject matter of later chapters. For the period previous to April, 1861, British official att.i.tude may be summed up in the statement that the British Minister at Washington hoped against hope that some solution might be found for the preservation of the Union, but that at the same time, looking to future British interests and possibly believing also that his att.i.tude would tend to preserve the Union, he a.s.serted vehemently the impossibility of any Northern interference with British trade to Southern ports. Across the water, Russell also hoped faintly that there might be no separation. Very soon, however, believing that separation inevitable and the disruption of the Union final, he fixed his hope on peaceful rather than warlike secession. Even of this, however, he had little real expectation, but neither he nor anyone else in England, nor even in America, had any idea that the war would be a long and severe one. It is evident that he was already considering the arrival of that day when recognition must be granted to a new, independent and slave-holding State. But this estimate of the future is no proof that the Russian Amba.s.sador's accusation of British governmental pleasure in American disruption was justified[125].

Russell, cautious in refusing to pledge himself to Dallas, was using exactly such caution as a Foreign Secretary was bound to exercise. He would have been a rash man who, in view of the uncertainty and irresolution of Northern statesmen, would have committed Great Britain in March, 1861, to a definite line of policy.

On April 6, Russell was still instructing Lyons to recommend reconciliation. April 8, Dallas communicated to Russell an instruction from Seward dated March 9, arguing on lines of "traditional friendship"

against a British recognition of the Confederacy. Russell again refused to pledge his Government, but on April 12 he wrote to Lyons that British Ministers were "in no hurry to recognize the separation as complete and final[126]." In the early morning of that same day the armed conflict in America had begun, and on the day following, April 13, the first Southern victory had been recorded in the capture of Fort Sumter. The important question which the man at the head of the British Foreign Office had now immediately to decide was, what was to be England's att.i.tude, under international law, toward the two combatants in America. In deciding this question, neither sentiment nor ideals of morality, nor humanitarianism need play any part; England's _first_ need and duty were to determine and announce for the benefit of her citizens the correct position, under International law, which must be a.s.sumed in the presence of certain definite facts.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 31: Dr. Newton a.s.serts that at the end of the 'fifties Great Britain made a sharp change of policy. (_Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy_, Vol. II, p. 283.)]

[Footnote 32: Thomas Colley Grattan, _Civilized America_, 2 vols. 2nd ed., London, 1859, Vol. I, pp. 284-87. The first edition was printed in 1859 and a third in 1861. In some respects the work is historically untrustworthy since internal evidence makes clear that the greater part of it was written before 1846, in which year Grattan retired from his post in Boston. In general he wrote scathingly of America, and as his son succeeded to the Boston consulship, Grattan probably thought it wiser to postpone publication. I have found no review of the work which treats it otherwise than as an up-to-date description of 1859. This fact and its wide sale in England in 1860-61, give the work importance as influencing British knowledge and opinions.]

[Footnote 33: Charles Mackay, _Life and Liberty in America: or, Sketches of a Tour in the United States and Canada in 1857-8_, one vol., New York, 1859, pp. 316-17. Mackay was at least of sufficient repute as a poet to be thought worthy of a dinner in Boston at which there were present, Longfellow, Holmes, Aga.s.siz, Lowell, Prescott, Governor Banks, and others. He preached "hands across the seas" in his public lectures, occasionally reading his poem "John and Jonathan"--a sort of advance copy of Kipling's idea of the "White Man's Burden." Mackay's concluding verse, "John" speaking, was:

"And I have strength for n.o.bler work Than e'er my hand has done, And realms to rule and truths to plant Beyond the rising sun.

Take you the West and I the East; We'll spread ourselves abroad, With trade and spade and wholesome laws, And faith in man and G.o.d."

[Footnote 34: Duncan, _Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer_, Vol. I, p.

140.]

[Footnote 35: R.C. Hamilton, Ma.n.u.script Chapters and Notes on "The English Press and the Civil War." Mr. Hamilton was at work on this subject, as a graduate student, but left Stanford University before completing his thesis. His notes have been of considerable value, both for suggested citations from the English Press, and for points of interpretation.]

[Footnote 36: _Economist_, November 24, 1860. Six months later, however, the _Economist_ pictured Lincoln as merely an unknown "sectionalist,"

with no evidence of statesmanship--_Economist_, June 1, 1861.]

[Footnote 37: _Sat.u.r.day Review_, November 24, 1860.]

[Footnote 38: _Spectator_, November 24, 1860.]

[Footnote 39: The _Times_, November 26, 1860.]

[Footnote 40: _Ibid._, November 29, 1860.]

[Footnote 41: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 42: R.L. Duffus, "Contemporary English Popular Opinion on the American Civil War," p. 2. A thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Stanford University, 1911. This thesis is in ma.n.u.script. It is a valuable study of the Reviews and of the writings of men of letters. Hereafter cited as Duffus "English Opinion."]

[Footnote 43: The _Times_, January 12, 1861.]

[Footnote 44: _Sat.u.r.day Review_, January 12, 1861.]

[Footnote 45: _Economist_, December 8, 1860. _Spectator_, January 19, 1861.]

[Footnote 46: _Spectator_, December 1, 1860. _Times_, January 29, 1861.

_Economist_, May 25, 1861.]

[Footnote 47: _Sat.u.r.day Review_, January 19, 1861.]

[Footnote 48: _Edinburgh Review_, Vol. 112, p. 545.]

[Footnote 49: Lyons Papers.]

[Footnote 50: Russell, _My Diary North and South_, Boston, 1863, p. 134.

"Then cropped out again the expression of regret for the rebellion of 1776, and the desire that if it came to the worst, England would receive back her erring children, or give them a prince under whom they could secure a monarchical form of government. There is no doubt about the earnestness with which these things are said." Russell's _Diary_ is largely a condensation of his letters to the _Times_. In the letter of April 30, 1861 (published May 28), he dilates to the extent of a column on the yearning of South Carolina for a restoration of colonial relations. But Consul Bunch on December 14, 1860, reported a Charleston sentiment very different from that of the Jockey Club in February. He wrote to Lyons:

"The church bells are ringing like mad in celebration of a newly revived festival, called 'Evacuation Day,' being the _nefastus ille dies_ in which the b.l.o.o.d.y Britishers left Charleston 78 years ago. It has fallen into utter disuse for about 50 years, but is now suddenly resuscitated apropos _de_ nothing at all."

In this same letter Bunch described a Southern patriotic demonstration.

Returning to his home one evening, he met a military company, which from curiosity he followed, and which

"drew up in front of the residence of a young lawyer of my friends, after performing in whose honour, through the medium of a very bra.s.sy band, a Secession Schottische or Palmetto Polka, it clamorously demanded his presence. After a very brief interval he appeared, and altho' he is in private life an agreeable and moderately sensible young man, he succeeded, to my mind at any rate, in making most successfully, what Mr.

Anthony Weller calls 'an Egyptian Mummy of his self.' the amount of balderdash and rubbish which he evacuated (_dia stomatos_) about mounting the deadly breach, falling back into the arms of his comrades and going off generally in a blaze of melodramatic fireworks, really made me so unhappy that I lost my night's rest. So soon as the speech was over the company was invited into the house to 'pour a libation to the holy cause'--in the vernacular, to take a drink and spit on the floor."

Evidently Southern eloquence was not tolerable to the ears of the British consul. Or was it the din of the church bells rather than the clamour of the orator, that offended him? (_Lyons Papers_.)]

[Footnote 51: _Edinburgh Review_, Vol. 113, p. 555.]

[Footnote 52: The _Times_, January 4, 1861.]

[Footnote 53: Letter to _Dublin News_, dated January 26, 1861. Cited in _The Liberator_, March 1, 1861. Garrison, editor of _The Liberator_, was then earnest in advocating "letting the South go in peace" as a good riddance.]

[Footnote 54: _Sat.u.r.day Review_, March 2, 1861, p. 216.]

[Footnote 55: _London Chronicle_, March 14, 1861. Cited in _The Liberator_, April 12, 1861.]

[Footnote 56: _London Review_, April 20, 1861. Cited in Littel's _Living Age_, Vol. LXIX, p. 495. The editor of the _Review_ was a Dr. Mackay, but I have been unable to identify him, as might seem natural from his opinions, as the Mackay previously quoted (p. 37) who was later New York correspondent of the _Times_.]

[Footnote 57: Matthew Arnold, _Letters_, Vol. I., p. 150. Letter to Mrs.

Forster, January 28, 1861.]

[Footnote 58: Julian Hawthorne, _Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife_, Vol.

II, pp. 271-78. _Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier_, Vol. II, pp. 439 seq.]

[Footnote 59: _Quarterly Review_, Vol. 110, p. 282. July, 1861.]

[Footnote 60: Duffus, "English Opinion," p. 7.]

[Footnote 61: _Westminster_, Vol. Lx.x.x, p. 587.]

[Footnote 62: Adams' course was bitterly criticized by his former intimate friend, Charles Sumner, but the probable purpose of Adams was, foreseeing the certainty of secession, to exhibit so strongly the arrogance and intolerance of the South as to create greater unity of Northern sentiment. This was a purpose that could not be declared and both at home and abroad his action, and that of other former anti-slavery leaders, for the moment weakened faith that the North was in earnest on the general issue of slavery.]

[Footnote 63: _Services rendered by Russia to the American People during the War of the Rebellion_, Petersburg, 1904, p. 5.]

[Footnote 64: _Parliamentary Papers_, 1862, _Lords_, Vol. XXV, "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States," No. 1.]