Then came the outbreak which had been so often foretold, so often
menaced; and the ground reeled under the nation during four years
of agony, until at last, after the smoke of the battlefield had
cleared away, the horrid shape which had cast its shadow over a
whole continent had vanished, and was gone for ever.—JOHN BRIGHT.
I
Sir Cornewall Lewis in a memorandum printed for the use of his colleagues
both truly and impressively described the momentous struggle that at this
time broke upon the family of civilised nations in both hemispheres. “It
may be fairly asserted,” says the particularly competent writer of it,
“that the war in America is the greatest event that has occurred in the
political world since the definitive fall of Napoleon in 1815. The
expulsion of the elder branch of the Bourbons in 1830; the expulsion of
Louis Philippe in 1848; the re-establishment of a republic, and the
subsequent restoration of a Bonaparte to the imperial throne—were all
important events, both to France and to the rest of Europe; but (with the
exception of the recent annexation of Savoy and Nice) they have not
altered the boundaries of France; and Europe still, in spite of minor
changes, substantially retains the form impressed upon it by the treaty of
Vienna.(48) With respect to the internal consequences of these changes, a
French revolution has become a fight in the streets of Paris, in order to
determine who shall be the occupant of the Tuileries. The administrative
body and the army—the two great governing powers of France—remain
substantially unaffected; whereas the American civil war threatens a
complete territorial re-arrangement of the Union; it also portends a
fundamental change in the constitution, by which both its federal and
state elements will be recast.”
Of this immense conflict Mr. Gladstone, like most of the leading statesmen
of the time, and like the majority of his countrymen, failed to take the
true measure. The error that lay at the root of our English misconception
of the American struggle is now clear. We applied ordinary political
maxims to what was not merely a political contest, but a social
revolution. Without scrutiny of the cardinal realities beneath, we
discussed it like some superficial conflict in our old world about
boundaries, successions, territorial partitions, dynastic preponderance.
The significance of the American war was its relation to slavery. That war
arose from the economic, social, and political consequences that flowed
from slavery—its wasteful cultivation, the consequent need for extension
of slave territory, the probable revival of the accursed African trade,
the constitution of slave-holders as the sole depositaries of social
prestige and political power. Secession was undertaken for the purpose of
erecting into an independent state a community whose whole structure was
moulded on a system that held labour in contempt, that kept the labourer
in ignorance and cruel bondage, that demanded a vigilant censorship of the
press and an army of watchmen and spies. And this barbaric state was to
set itself up on the border of a great nation, founded on free industry,
political equality, diffused knowledge, energetic progress. Such was the
meaning of secession. “The rebellion,” as Charles Sumner well said to Mr.
Gladstone in 1864, “is slavery in arms, revolting, indecent, imperious.”
Therefore those who fought against secession fought against slavery and
all that was involved in that dark burden, and whatever their motives may
at different times have been, they rendered an immortal service to
humanity.(49)
(M25) At a very early period Mr. Gladstone formed the opinion that the
attempt to restore the Union by force would and must fail. “As far as the
_controversy_ between North and South,” he wrote to the Duchess of
Sutherland (May 29, 1861) “is a controversy on the principle announced by
the vice-president of the South, viz. that which asserts the superiority
of the white man, and therewith founds on it his right to hold the black
in slavery, I think that principle detestable, and I am wholly with the
opponents of it.... No distinction can in my eyes be broader than the
distinction between the question whether the Southern ideas of slavery are
right, and the question whether they can justifiably be put down by war
from the North.” To Cyrus Field he wrote (Nov. 27, 1862): “Your frightful
conflict may be regarded from many points of view. The competency of the
Southern states to secede; the rightfulness of their conduct in seceding
(two matters wholly distinct and a great deal too much confounded); the
natural reluctance of Northern Americans to acquiesce in the severance of
the union, and the apparent loss of strength and glory to their country;
the bearing of the separation on the real interests and on the moral
character of the North; again, for an Englishman, its bearing with respect
to British interests;—all these are texts of which any one affords ample
matter for reflection, but I will only state as regards the last of them,
that I for one have never hesitated to maintain that, in my opinion, the
separate and special interests of England were all on the side of the
maintenance of the old union, and if I were to look at those interests
alone, and had the power of choosing in what way the war should end, I
would choose for its ending by the restoration of the old union this very
day.”
In a letter to the Duchess of Sutherland (Nov. 7, 1862), he says: “A
friendly correspondent writes to say he is sorry the South has my
sympathies. But the South has not my sympathies, except in the sense in
which the North has them also. I wish them both cordially well, which I
believe is more than most Englishmen can at present say with truth. In
both I see the elements of future power and good; in both I see also the
elements of danger and mischief.’ To another correspondent: ’I have never
to my knowledge expressed any sympathy with the Southern cause in any
speech at Newcastle or elsewhere, nor have I passed any eulogium upon
President Davis. In dealing whether with South or North I have thought it
out of my province to touch in any way the complicated question of praise
and blame.”
At a very early stage the Duke of Argyll sent him some letter of Mrs.
Beecher Stowe’s, and Mr. Gladstone in acknowledging it from Penmaenmawr
(Aug. 26, 1861) writes expressing all possible respect for her character
and talents, but thinks that she has lost intellectual integrity:—
It seems to me that the South has two objects in view: firstly the
liberation of its trade and people from the law of tribute to the
North; secondly and perhaps mainly, the maintenance of the slave
system without fear or risk of Northern interference. That on the
other hand it is very difficult to analyse that movement of the
North which Mrs. Stowe finds sublime, but which in my eyes is
tumultuous. There is the anti-slavery motive impelling with great
vehemence a small section, which she rather offensively calls the
Christian people of the union; there is the spirit of protection
and monopoly, unwilling to surrender future booty; there is the
unquietness in the great towns, found in America as in all
countries, and ever ready for a row; there is the fear which Mr.
Motley described, that unless a firm front were shown against
secession it would not stop where it had begun; there is last and
(relatively to this subject matter) best of all the strong
instinct of national life, and the abhorrence of nature itself
towards all severance of an organised body. This last sentiment,
as well as the first, deserved to be treated by us with great
tenderness and respect.... As to the authority and title of the
North it must be granted _primâ facie_, but on examination it is
subject to a good deal of doubt, and I think it seems to have been
the intention of the framers of the constitution not to lay down a
rule for the solution of a great question of this kind, but to
leave it open. And if so, I think they were wise; for such a
question could only arise for any practical purpose at a time when
the foundations of the great social deep are broken up, and when
the forces brought into unrestrained play are by far too gigantic
to be controlled by paper conventions.
So much for his view of the case in its general aspect.
II
At one dangerous moment in the conflict it seemed possible that Great
Britain might be forced to take a part. The commander of an American
man-of-war boarded the _Trent_ (Nov. 8, 1861), a British mail-boat, seized
two emissaries from the Southern confederacy on their way to Europe, and
carried them off to his own ship, whence they were afterwards landed and
thrown into prison. This act was in direct violation of those rights of
neutrals of which the United States hitherto had been the strictest
champion against Great Britain; and nothing was to be gained by it, for
the presence of the two commissioners was not in the least likely to
effect any change in the policy of either England or France. Violent
explosions of public feeling broke out on both sides of the Atlantic; of
anger in England, of exultation in America. Mr. Gladstone’s movements at
this critical hour are interesting. On Nov. 27, says Phillimore,
“Gladstones dined here. Gladstone, with the account in his pocket from the
evening papers of the capture of the Southern envoys out of the English
mail-ship.” The next two nights he was at court.
_Nov. 28._—Off at 6.30 to Windsor. The Queen and Prince spoke much
of the American news.
_Nov. 29_ (Friday).—Came up to town for the cabinet on American
news. Returned to Windsor for dinner, and reported to Queen and
Prince.
Of this important cabinet, Mr. Gladstone wrote an account to the Duke of
Argyll, then absent from London:—
_Dec. 3, ’61._—The cabinet determined on Friday to ask reparation,
and on Saturday they agreed to two despatches to Lord Lyons of
which the one recited the facts, stated we could not but suppose
the American government would of itself be desirous to afford us
reparation, and said that in any case we must have (1) the
commissioners returned to British protection; and (2) an apology
or expression of regret. The second of these despatches desired
Lyons to come away within seven days if the demands are not
complied with. _I thought and urged that we should hear what the
Americans had to say before withdrawing Lyons, for I could not
feel sure that we were at the bottom of the law of the case, or
could judge here and now what form it would assume. But this view
did not prevail._
We may assume that Mr. Gladstone, in reporting these proceedings at
Windsor, did not conceal his own arguments for moderation which had been
overruled. On the following day the cabinet again met. “Nov. 30 (Sat.).
Left Windsor at 11.25. Cabinet 3-5-½. Lord Russell’s draft softened and
abridged.” That is to say the draft was brought nearer, though not near
enough, to the temper urged upon the cabinet and represented at court by
Mr. Gladstone the day before.
The story of the first of these two critical despatches is pretty well
known; how the draft initialled by Lord Russell was sent down the same
night to Windsor; how the Prince Consort—then as it proved rapidly sinking
down into his fatal illness—found it somewhat meagre, and suggested
modifications and simplifications; how the Queen returned the draft with
the suggestions in a letter to the prime minister; how Palmerston thought
them excellent, and after remodelling the draft in the more temperate
spirit recommended by the Prince, though dropping at least one irritating
phrase in the Queen’s memorandum,(50) sent it back to the foreign office,
whence it was duly sent on (Dec. 1) to Lord Lyons at Washington. It seems,
moreover, that a day’s reflection had brought his colleagues round to Mr.
Gladstone’s mind, for Lord Russell wrote to Lord Lyons a private note
(Dec. 1) in effect instructing him to say nothing about withdrawing in
seven days.(51)
(M26) The British despatches were delivered to Lord Lyons at Washington at
midnight on December 18; the reparation despatch was formally read to Mr.
Seward on the 23rd; and on Christmas Day Lincoln had a meeting of his
cabinet. Sumner was invited to attend, and he read long letters from
Cobden and Bright. “At all hazards,” said Bright, “you must not let this
matter grow to a war with England. Even if you are right and we are wrong,
war will be fatal to your idea of restoring the union.... I implore you
not, on any feeling that nothing can be conceded, and that England is
arrogant and seeking a quarrel, to play the game of every enemy of your
country.”(52) A French despatch in the English sense was also read. Seward
and Sumner were in favour of giving up the men. The president, thinking of
popular excitement, hesitated. In the end, partly because the case was bad
on the merits, partly because they could not afford to have a second great
war upon their hands, all came round to Seward’s view.(53)
III
By the autumn of 1862 the war had lasted a year and a half. It was already
entailing a cost heavier than our war with Napoleon at its most expensive
period. The North had still failed to execute its declared purpose of
reducing the South to submission. The blockade of the Southern ports, by
stopping the export of cotton, was declared to have produced worse
privations, loss, and suffering to England and France than were ever
produced to neutral nations by a war. It was not in Mr. Gladstone’s nature
to sit with folded hands in sight of what he took to be hideous and
unavailing carnage and havoc. Lord Palmerston, he tells Mrs. Gladstone
(July 29, 1862), “has come exactly to my mind about some early
representation of a friendly kind to America, if we can get France _and_
Russia to join.” A day or two later (Aug. 3) he writes to the Duke of
Argyll: “My _opinion_ is that it is vain, and wholly unsustained by
precedent, to say nothing shall be done until both parties are desirous of
it; that, however, we ought to avoid sole action, or anything except
acting in such a combination as would morally represent the weight of
impartial Europe; that with this view we ought to communicate with France
and Russia; to make with them a friendly representation (if they are ready
to do it) of the mischief and the hopelessness of prolonging the contest
in which both sides have made extraordinary and heroic efforts; but if
they are not ready, then to wait for some opportunity when they may be
disposed to move with us. The adhesion of other powers would be desirable
if it does not encumber the movement.”
“In the year 1862,” says Mr. Gladstone in a fragment of autobiography, “I
had emerged from very grave financial [budget] difficulties, which in 1860
and 1861 went near to breaking me down. A blue sky was now above me, and
some of the Northern liberals devised for me a triumphant visit to the
Tyne, which of course entailed as one of its incidents a public dinner.”
Seeing a visit to Newcastle announced, Lord Palmerston wrote (Sept. 24) to
Mr. Gladstone, begging him on no account to let the chancellor of the
exchequer be too sympathetic with the tax-payer, or to tell the country
that it was spending more money than it could afford. A more important
part of the letter was to inform Mr. Gladstone that he himself and Lord
Russell thought the time was fast approaching when an offer of mediation
ought to be made by England, France, and Russia, and that Russell was
going privately to instruct the ambassador at Paris to sound the French
government. “Of course,” Lord Palmerston said, “no actual step would be
taken without the sanction of the cabinet. But if I am not mistaken, you
would be inclined to approve such a course.” The proposal would be made to
both North and South. If both should accept, an armistice would follow,
and negotiations on the basis of separation. If both should decline, then
Lord Palmerston assumed that they would acknowledge the independence of
the South. The next day Mr. Gladstone replied. He was glad to learn what
the prime minister had told him, and for two reasons especially he desired
that the proceedings should be prompt. The first was the rapid progress of
the Southern arms and the extension of the area of Southern feeling. The
second was the risk of violent impatience in the cotton-towns of
Lancashire, such as would prejudice the dignity and disinterestedness of
the proffered mediation.(54) On September 17 Russell had replied to a
letter from Palmerston three days earlier, saying explicitly, “I agree
with you that the time is come for offering mediation to the United States
government, with a view to the recognition of the independence of the
Confederates. I agree further, that in case of failure, we ought ourselves
to recognise the Southern states as an independent state.”(55) So far,
then, had the two heads of the government advanced, when Mr. Gladstone
went to Newcastle.
(M27) The people of the Tyne gave him the reception of a king. The prints
of the time tell how the bells rang, guns thundered, a great procession of
steamers followed him to the mouth of the river, ships flew their gayest
bunting, the banks were thronged with hosts of the black-handed toilers of
the forges, the furnaces, the coal-staiths, chemical works, glass
factories, shipyards, eager to catch a glimpse of the great man; and all
this not because he had tripled the exports to France, but because a sure
instinct had revealed an accent in his eloquence that spoke of feeling for
the common people.(56)
_Oct. 7, 1862._—Reflected further on what I should say about
Lancashire and America, for both these subjects are critical....
At two we went to Newcastle and saw the principal objects,
including especially the fine church and lantern, the gem of an
old castle, and Grey Street—I think our best modern street. The
photographer also laid hands on me. At six we went to a crowded
and enthusiastic dinner of near 500. I was obliged to make a long
oration which was admirably borne. The hall is not very easy to
fill with the voice, but quite practicable. 8.—Reached Gateshead
at 12, and after an address and reply, embarked in the midst of a
most striking scene which was prolonged and heightened as we went
down the river at the head of a fleet of some 25 steamers, amidst
the roar of guns and the banks lined or dotted above and below
with multitudes of people. The expedition lasted six hours, and I
had as many speeches as hours. Such a pomp I shall probably never
again witness; circumstances have brought upon me what I do not in
any way deserve.... The spectacle was really one for Turner, no
one else. 9.—Off to Sunderland. Here we had a similar reception
and a progress through the town and over the docks and harbour
works. I had to address the naval men, and then came a large
meeting in the hall. Thence by rail to Middlesborough. At
Darlington we were met by Lord Zetland, the mayor, and others.
Middlesborough was as warm or even warmer. Another progress and
steamboat procession and incessant flood of information respecting
this curious place. The labour, however, is too much; giddiness
came over me for a moment while I spoke at Sunderland, and I had
to take hold of the table. At Middlesborough we had an address and
reply in the town hall, then a public dinner, and we ended a day
of over fifteen hours at Upleatham before midnight. C. again
holding out, and indeed she is a great part of the whole business
with the people everywhere. I ought to be thankful, still more
ought I to be ashamed. It was vain to think of reading, writing,
or much reflecting on such a day. I was most happy to lie down for
fifteen minutes at Mr. Vaughan’s in Middlesborough. 11.—Off at 8
A.M. to take the rail at Guisbro. At Middlesborough many friends
had gathered at the station to give us a parting cheer. We came on
to York, went at once to the mansion-house, and then visited the
minister. At two came the “luncheon,” and I had to address another
kind of audience.
Unhappily, the slave must still go in the triumphal car to remind us of
the fallibilities of men, and here the conqueror made a grave mistake. At
the banquet in the town hall of Newcastle (Oct. 7), with which all these
joyous proceedings had begun, Mr. Gladstone let fall a sentence about the
American war of which he was destined never to hear the last: “We know
quite well that the people of the Northern states have not yet drunk of
the cup—they are still trying to hold it far from their lips—which all the
rest of the world see they nevertheless must drink of. We may have our own
opinions about slavery; we may be for or against the South; but there is
no doubt that Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South have made an
army; they are making, it appears, a navy; and they have made what is more
than either, they have made a nation.”
Here the speaker was forgetful of a wholesome saying of his own, that “a
man who speaks in public ought to know, besides his own meaning, the
meaning which others will attach to his words.” The sensation was
immediate and profound. All the world took so pointed an utterance to mean
that the government were about to recognise the independence of the South.
The cotton men were thrown into a position of doubt and uncertainty that
still further disturbed their trade. Orders for cotton were countermanded,
and the supply of the precious material for a moment threatened to become
worse than ever. Cobden and Bright were twitted with the lapse of their
favourite from a central article of their own creed and commandments.
Louis Blanc, then in exile here, describing the feeling of the country,
compares the sympathy for the North to a dam and the sympathy for the
South to a torrent, and says he fears that Gladstone at Newcastle had
yielded to the temptation of courting popularity.(57) The American
minister dropped a hint about passports.(58)
To the numerous correspondents who complained of his language Mr.
Gladstone framed a form of reply, disclaiming responsibility for all the
various inferences that people chose to draw from his language. “And
generally,” his secretary concluded, in phrases that justly provoked plain
men to wrath, “Mr. Gladstone desires me to remark that to form opinions
upon questions of policy, to announce them to the world, and to take or to
be a party to taking any of the steps necessary for giving them effect,
are matters which, though connected together, are in themselves distinct,
and which may be separated by intervals of time longer or shorter
according to the particular circumstances of the case.”(59) Mr. Gladstone
sent a copy of this enigmatical response to the foreign secretary, who was
far too acute not to perceive all the mischief and the peril, but had his
full share of that generosity of our public life that prevents a minister
from bearing too hardly on a colleague who has got the boat and its crew
into a scrape. Lord Russell replied from Walmer (Oct. 20): “I have
forwarded to your private secretary your very proper answer to your very
impertinent correspondent. Still, you must allow me to say that I think
you went beyond the latitude which all speakers must be allowed, when you
said that Jeff. Davis had made a nation. Recognition would seem to follow,
and for that step I think the cabinet is not prepared. However, we shall
soon meet to discuss this very topic.” A week after the deliverance at
Newcastle, Lewis, at Lord Palmerston’s request as I have heard, put things
right in a speech at Hereford. The Southern states, he said, had not _de
facto_ established their independence and were not entitled to recognition
on any accepted principles of public law.
(M28) It is superfluous for any of us at this day to pass judgment. Mr.
Gladstone has left on record in a fragmentary note of late date his own
estimate of an error that was in truth serious enough, and that has since
been most of all exaggerated by those sections of society and opinion who
at the time most eagerly and freely shared the very same delusion.
I have yet to record, he writes (July 1896) in the fragment
already more than once mentioned, an undoubted error, the most
singular and palpable, I may add the least excusable of them all,
especially since it was committed so late as in the year 1862,
when I had outlived half a century. In the autumn of that year,
and in a speech delivered after a public dinner at
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, I declared in the heat of the American
struggle that Jefferson Davis had made a nation, that is to say,
that the division of the American Republic by the establishment of
a Southern or secession state was an accomplished fact. Strange to
say, this declaration, most unwarrantable to be made by a minister
of the crown with no authority other than his own, was not due to
any feeling of partizanship for the South or hostility to the
North. The fortunes of the South were at their zenith. Many who
wished well to the Northern cause despaired of its success. The
friends of the North in England were beginning to advise that it
should give way, for the avoidance of further bloodshed and
greater calamity. I weakly supposed that the time had come when
respectful suggestions of this kind, founded on the necessity of
the case, were required by a spirit of that friendship which, in
so many contingencies of life, has to offer sound recommendations
with a knowledge that they will not be popular. Not only was this
a misjudgment of the case, but even if it had been otherwise, I
was not the person to make the declaration. I really, though most
strangely, believed that it was an act of friendliness to all
America to recognise that the struggle was virtually at an end. I
was not one of those who on the ground of British interests
desired a division of the American Union. My view was distinctly
opposite. I thought that while the Union continued it never could
exercise any dangerous pressure upon Canada to estrange it from
the empire—our honour, as I thought, rather than our interest
forbidding its surrender. But were the Union split, the North, no
longer checked by the jealousies of slave-power, would seek a
partial compensation for its loss in annexing, or trying to annex,
British North America. Lord Palmerston desired the severance as a
diminution of a dangerous power, but prudently held his tongue.
That my opinion was founded upon a false estimate of the facts was
the very least part of my fault. I did not perceive the gross
impropriety of such an utterance from a cabinet minister, of a
power allied in blood and language, and bound to loyal neutrality;
the case being further exaggerated by the fact that we were
already, so to speak, under indictment before the world for not
(as was alleged) having strictly enforced the laws of neutrality
in the matter of the cruisers. My offence was indeed only a
mistake, but one of incredible grossness, and with such
consequences of offence and alarm attached to it, that my failing
to perceive them justly exposed me to very severe blame. It
illustrates vividly that incapacity which my mind so long
retained, and perhaps still exhibits, an incapacity of viewing
subjects all round, in their extraneous as well as in their
internal properties, and thereby of knowing when to be silent and
when to speak.
I am the more pained and grieved, because I have for the last
five-and-twenty years received from the government and people of
America tokens of goodwill which could not fail to arouse my
undying gratitude. When we came to the arbitration at Geneva, my
words were cited as part of the proof of hostile _animus_.
Meantime I had prepared a lengthened statement to show from my
abundant declarations on other occasions that there was and could
be on my part no such _animus_. I was desirous to present this
statement to the arbitrators. My colleagues objected so largely to
the proceeding that I desisted. In this I think they probably were
wrong. I addressed my paper to the American minister for the
information of his government, and Mr. Secretary Fish gave me, so
far as intention was concerned, a very handsome acquittal.
And strange to say,_post hoc_ though, perhaps not _propter hoc_,
the United States have been that country of the world in which the
most signal marks of public honour have been paid me, and in which
my name has been the most popular, the only parallels being Italy,
Greece, and the Balkan Peninsula.
Among the many calumnies poured upon him in this connection was the charge
that he had been a subscriber to the Confederate Loan. “The statement,” he
wrote to a correspondent (Oct. 17, 1865), “is not only untrue, but it is
so entirely void of the slightest shadow of support in any imaginable
incident of the case, that I am hardly able to ascribe it to mere error,
and am painfully perplexed as to the motives which could have prompted so
mischievous a forgery.”
IV
As I have already said, the American minister had hinted at passports. Ten
days after Mr. Gladstone’s speech Mr. Adams saw Lord Russell. Having
mentioned some minor matters he came to the real object of the interview.
“If I had trusted,” he said, “to the construction given by the public to a
late speech, I should have begun to think of packing my carpet bag and
trunks. His lordship at once embraced the allusion, and whilst
endeavouring to excuse Mr. Gladstone, in fact admitted that his act had
been regretted by Lord Palmerston and the other cabinet officers. Still he
could not disavow the sentiments of Mr. Gladstone; so far as he understood
them (his meaning) was not that ascribed to him by the public. Mr.
Gladstone was himself willing to disclaim that. He had written to that
effect to Lord Palmerston.... His lordship said that the policy of the
government was to adhere to a strict neutrality, and to leave this
struggle to settle itself.... I asked him if I was to understand that
policy as not now to be changed. He said, Yes.”(60)
If this relation be accurate, then the foreign secretary did not construe
strict neutrality as excluding what diplomatists call good offices. On
October 13, Lord Russell circulated a memorandum to the cabinet setting
out in an argumentative tone all the adverse and confused aspects of the
situation and outlook in America, and ending in the emphatic conclusion
that it had now become a question for the great Powers of Europe whether
it was not their duty to ask both parties to agree to a suspension of arms
for the purpose of weighing calmly the advantages of peace. Cornewall
Lewis (Oct. 17), while expressing an opinion that a peaceful separation
between North and South would in the end have been best for the North, and
while apparently believing that the war must one day end in Southern
independence, met Russell’s suggestion by cogent arguments against action
on our part.(61) A week later (Oct. 24), Mr. Gladstone circulated a
rejoinder to Lewis, arguing for representation to the two combatants from
England, France, and Russia—a representation with moral authority and
force, of the opinion of the civilised world upon the conditions of the
case.
(M29) This pretty nearly concludes all that need be said upon the attitude
taken by Mr. Gladstone in that mighty struggle. We may at least add that
if, and where, it differed from that of the majority of his countrymen, it
did not differ for the worse. In November (1862) the French Emperor
renewed proposals of joint mediation. The Emperor had objects of his own
to serve. He was entangled in the coils of the Mexican adventure that was
to give the first shock to his throne and to add another to the long
scroll of tragedies in the house of Hapsburg. From the first the
government of the American Union had scowled upon the intervention of
Europe in the affairs of Mexico, just as the same government had refused
to intervene in a European protest on behalf of Poland. The civil war
between North and South kept American hands tied, and Napoleon well knew
that the success of the North and the consolidation of the Union would
overthrow his designs in Mexico. He cast restlessly about for any
combination that promised aid to the Southern confederates, who, whether
they should emerge strong or weak from the struggle, would be a useful
instrument for his future purposes. So now he pressed England and Russia
to join him in a project of mediation. Russia declined. The London cabinet
was divided.(62) Mr. Gladstone writes home in these important days.—“_Nov.
11._ We have had our cabinet to-day and meet again to-morrow. I am afraid
we shall do little or nothing in the business of America. But I will send
you definite intelligence. Both Lords Palmerston and Russell are
_right_.—_Nov. 12._ The United States affair has ended and not well. Lord
Russell rather turned tail. He gave way without resolutely fighting out
his battle. However, though we decline for the moment, the answer is put
upon grounds and in terms which leave the matter very open for the
future.—_Nov. 13._ I think the French will make our answer about America
public; at least it is very possible. But I hope they may not take it as a
positive refusal, or at any rate that they may themselves act in the
matter. It will be clear that we concur with them, that the war should
cease. Palmerston gave to Russell’s proposal a feeble and half-hearted
support. As to the state of matters generally in the cabinet, I have never
seen it smoother; and they look pretty well, I think, as regards my
department, though the distress tells upon me.”
The only speech, I believe, delivered by Mr. Gladstone upon the war in
parliament, while resisting the motion for the recognition of the
confederacy, was curiously balanced.(63) As to the South, he said, not a
few must sympathise with a resistance as heroic as ever was offered in the
history of the world on the part of a weaker body against the overpowering
forces of a stronger. On the other hand, the cause of the South was so
connected with slavery that a strong counter-current of feeling must arise
in the mind. Then again, it is impossible for any Englishman not to have a
very strong feeling of sympathy with those in the North who saw exalted
visions of the great future of their country, now threatened with
destruction. He had never agreed with those who thought it a matter of
high British interest that the old American union should be torn in
pieces. He had always thought that, involved as England was both in
interest and in duty and honour with Canada, the balanced state of the
American union which caused the whole of American politics to turn on the
relative strength of the slavery and Northern interests, was more
favourable to our colonial relations in North America, than if the said
union were to be divided into a cluster of Northern and a cluster of
Southern states. The North would endeavour to re-establish their
territorial grandeur by seeking union with the British possessions in
North America. He dwelt upon the horrid incidents of war. He insisted once
more that the public opinion of this country was unanimous that the
restoration of the American union by force was unattainable. Some cries of
“No” greeted this declaration about unanimity, but he would not qualify it
further than to say that at any rate it was almost unanimous. The other
chief speakers that night were Mr. Forster (who played a brave and
clear-sighted part throughout), Lord Robert Cecil, who attacked the “vague
and loose” arguments of the chancellor of the exchequer, and Mr. Bright,
who made perhaps the most powerful and the noblest speech of his life.