[Illustration: LORD JOHN RUSSELL
(_From Trevelyan's "Garibaldi and the Making of Italy_")]
_EPHRAIM DOUGLASS ADAMS_
GREAT BRITAIN
AND
THE AMERICAN
CIVIL WAR
TWO VOLUMES BOUND AS ONE
PREFACE
This work was begun many years ago. In 1908 I read in the British Museum
many newspapers and journals for the years 1860-1865, and then planned a
survey of English public opinion on the American Civil War. In the
succeeding years as a teacher at Stanford University, California, the
published diplomatic correspondence of Great Britain and of the United
States were studied in connection with instruction given in the field of
British-American relations. Several of my students prepared excellent
theses on special topics and these have been acknowledged where used in
this work. Many distractions and other writing prevented the completion
of my original plan; and fortunately, for when in 1913 I had at last
begun this work and had prepared three chapters, a letter was received
from the late Charles Francis Adams inviting me to collaborate with him
in preparing a "Life" of his father, the Charles Francis Adams who was
American Minister to Great Britain during the Civil War. Mr. Adams had
recently returned from England where he had given at Oxford University a
series of lectures on the Civil War and had been so fortunate as to
obtain copies, made under the scholarly supervision of Mr. Worthington
C. Ford, of a great mass of correspondence from the Foreign Office files
in the Public Record Office and from the private papers in the
possession of various families.
The first half of the year 1914 was spent with Mr. Adams at Washington
and at South Lincoln, in preparing the "Life." Two volumes were
completed, the first by Mr. Adams carrying the story to 1848, the
second by myself for the period 1848 to 1860. For the third volume I
analysed and organized the new materials obtained in England and we were
about to begin actual collaboration on the most vital period of the
"Life" when Mr. Adams died, and the work was indefinitely suspended,
probably wisely, since any completion of the "Life" by me would have
lacked that individual charm in historical writing so markedly
characteristic of all that Mr. Adams did. The half-year spent with Mr.
Adams was an inspiration and constitutes a precious memory.
The Great War interrupted my own historical work, but in 1920 I returned
to the original plan of a work on "Great Britain and the American Civil
War" in the hope that the English materials obtained by Mr. Adams might
be made available to me. When copies were secured by Mr. Adams in 1913 a
restriction had been imposed by the Foreign Office to the effect that
while studied for information, citations and quotations were not
permissible since the general diplomatic archives were not yet open to
students beyond the year 1859. Through my friend Sir Charles Lucas, the
whole matter was again presented to the Foreign Office, with an exact
statement that the new request was in no way related to the proposed
"Life" of Charles Francis Adams, but was for my own use of the
materials. Lord Curzon, then Foreign Secretary, graciously approved the
request but with the usual condition that my manuscript be submitted
before publication to the Foreign Office. This has now been done, and no
single citation censored. Before this work will have appeared the
limitation hitherto imposed on diplomatic correspondence will have been
removed, and the date for open research have been advanced beyond 1865,
the end of the Civil War.
Similar explanations of my purpose and proposed work were made through
my friend Mr. Francis W. Hirst to the owners of various private papers,
and prompt approval given. In 1924 I came to England for further study
of some of these private papers. The Russell Papers, transmitted to the
Public Record Office in 1914 and there preserved, were used through the
courtesy of the Executors of the late Hon. Rollo Russell, and with the
hearty goodwill of Lady Agatha Russell, daughter of the late Earl
Russell, the only living representative of her father, Mr. Rollo
Russell, his son, having died in 1914. The Lyons Papers, preserved in
the Muniment Room at Old Norfolk House, were used through the courtesy
of the Duchess of Norfolk, who now represents her son who is a minor.
The Gladstone Papers, preserved at Hawarden Castle, were used through
the courtesy of the Gladstone Trustees. The few citations from the
Palmerston Papers, preserved at Broadlands, were approved by
Lieut.-Colonel Wilfred Ashley, M.P.
The opportunity to study these private papers has been invaluable for my
work. Shortly after returning from England in 1913 Mr. Worthington Ford
well said: "The inside history of diplomatic relations between the
United States and Great Britain may be surmised from the official
archives; the tinting and shading needed to complete the picture must be
sought elsewhere." (Mass. Hist. Soc. _Proceedings_, XLVI, p. 478.) Mr.
C.F. Adams declared (_ibid._, XLVII, p. 54) that without these papers
"... the character of English diplomacy at that time (1860-1865) cannot
be understood.... It would appear that the commonly entertained
impressions as to certain phases of international relations, and the
proceedings and utterances of English public men during the progress of
the War of Secession, must be to some extent revised."
In addition to the new English materials I have been fortunate in the
generosity of my colleague at Stanford University, Professor Frank A.
Golder, who has given to me transcripts, obtained at St. Petersburg in
1914, of all Russian diplomatic correspondence on the Civil War. Many
friends have aided, by suggestion or by permitting the use of notes and
manuscripts, in the preparation of this work. I have sought to make due
acknowledgment for such aid in my foot-notes. But in addition to those
already named, I should here particularly note the courtesy of the late
Mr. Gaillard Hunt for facilities given in the State Department at
Washington, of Mr. Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress, for the
transcript of the Correspondence of Mason and Slidell, Confederate
Commissioners in Europe, and of Mr. Charles Moore, Chief of Manuscripts
Division, Library of Congress, for the use of the Schurz Papers
containing copies of the despatches of Schleiden, Minister of the
Republic of Bremen at Washington during the Civil War. Especially thanks
are due to my friend, Mr. Herbert Hoover, for his early interest in this
work and for his generous aid in the making of transcripts which would
otherwise have been beyond my means. And, finally, I owe much to the
skill and care of my wife who made the entire typescript for the Press,
and whose criticisms were invaluable.
It is no purpose of a Preface to indicate results, but it is my hope
that with, I trust, a "calm comparison of the evidence," now for the
first time available to the historian, a fairly true estimate may be
made of what the American Civil War meant to Great Britain; how she
regarded it and how she reacted to it. In brief, my work is primarily a
study in British history in the belief that the American drama had a
world significance, and peculiarly a British one.
EPHRAIM DOUGLASS ADAMS.
_November 25, 1924_
CONTENTS OF VOLUME ONE
CHAPTER PAGE
I. BACKGROUNDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
II. FIRST KNOWLEDGE OF IMPENDING CONFLICT, 1860-61 . . . 35
III. THE DEVELOPMENT OF A POLICY, MAY, 1861 . . . . . . 76
IV. BRITISH SUSPICION OF SEWARD . . . . . . . . . . 113
V. THE DECLARATION OF PARIS NEGOTIATION . . . . . . . 137
VI. BULL RUN; CONSUL BUNCH; COTTON, AND MERCIER . . . . 172
VII. THE "TRENT" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
VIII. THE BLOCKADE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
IX. ENTER MR. LINDSAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PART ONE
LORD JOHN RUSSELL . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
_From Trevelyan's "Garibaldi and the Making of
Italy_"
LORD LYONS (1860) . . . . . . . . . _facing p_. 42
_From Lord Newton's "Life of Lord Lyons" (Edward
Arnold & Co_.)
SIR WILLIAM GREGORY, K.C.M.G. . . . . . " 90
_From Lady Gregory's "Sir William Gregory,
K.C.M.G.: An Autobiography"_ (_John Murray_)
WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD . . . . . . . . " 114
_From Lord Newton's "Life of Lord Lyons"_ (_Edward
Arnold & Co._)
C.F. ADAMS . . . . . . . . . . . " 138
_From a photograph in the United States Embassy,
London_
JAMES M. MASON . . . . . . . . . . " 206
_From a photograph by L.C. Handy, Washington_
"KING COTTON BOUND" . . . . . . . . " 262
_Reproduced by permission of the Proprietors of
"Punch"_
GREAT BRITAIN AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
CHAPTER I
BACKGROUNDS
In 1862, less than a year after he had assumed his post in London, the
American Minister, Charles Francis Adams, at a time of depression and
bitterness wrote to Secretary of State Seward: "That Great Britain did,
in the most terrible moment of our domestic trial in struggling with a
monstrous social evil she had earnestly professed to abhor, coldly and
at once assume our inability to master it, and then become the only
foreign nation steadily contributing in every indirect way possible to
verify its judgment, will probably be the verdict made against her by
posterity, on calm comparison of the evidence[1]." Very different were
the views of Englishmen. The historian, George Grote, could write: "The
perfect neutrality [of Great Britain] in this destructive war appears to
me almost a phenomenon in political history. No such forbearance has
been shown during the political history of the last two centuries. It is
the single case in which the English Government and public--generally so
meddlesome--have displayed most prudent and commendable forbearance in
spite of great temptations to the contrary[2]." And Sir William
Harcourt, in September, 1863, declared: "Among all Lord Russell's many
titles to fame and to public gratitude, the manner in which he has
steered the vessel of State through the Scylla and Charybdis of the
American War will, I think, always stand conspicuous[3]."
Minister Adams, in the later years of the Civil War, saw reason somewhat
to modify his earlier judgment, but his indictment of Great Britain was
long prevalent in America, as, indeed, it was also among the historians
and writers of Continental Europe--notably those of France and Russia.
To what extent was this dictum justified? Did Great Britain in spite of
her long years of championship of personal freedom and of leadership in
the cause of anti-slavery seize upon the opportunity offered in the
disruption of the American Union, and forgetting humanitarian idealisms,
react only to selfish motives of commercial advantage and national
power? In brief, how is the American Civil War to be depicted by
historians of Great Britain, recording her attitude and action in both
foreign and domestic policy, and revealing the principles of her
statesmen, or the inspirations of her people?
It was to answer this question that the present work was originally
undertaken; but as investigation proceeded it became progressively more
clear that the great crisis in America was almost equally a crisis in
the domestic history of Great Britain itself and that unless this were
fully appreciated no just estimate was possible of British policy toward
America. Still more it became evident that the American Civil War, as
seen through British spectacles, could not be understood if regarded as
an isolated and unique situation, but that the conditions preceding that
situation--some of them lying far back in the relations of the two
nations--had a vital bearing on British policy and opinion when the
crisis arose. No expanded examination of these preceding conditions is
here possible, but it is to a summary analysis of them that this first
chapter is devoted.
* * * * *
On the American War for separation from the Mother Country it is
unnecessary to dilate, though it should always be remembered that both
during the war and afterwards there existed a minority in Great Britain
strongly sympathetic with the political ideals proclaimed in
America--regarding those ideals, indeed, as something to be striven for
in Britain itself and the conflict with America as, in a measure, a
conflict in home politics. But independence once acknowledged by the
Treaty of Peace of 1783, the relations between the Mother Country and
the newly-created United States of America rapidly tended to adjust
themselves to lines of contact customary between Great Britain and any
other Sovereign State. Such contacts, fixing national attitude and
policy, ordinarily occur on three main lines: governmental, determined
by officials in authority in either State whose duty it is to secure the
greatest advantage in power and prosperity for the State; commercial,
resulting, primarily, from the interchange of goods and the business
opportunities of either nation in the other's territory, or from their
rivalry in foreign trade; idealistic, the result of comparative
development especially in those ideals of political structure which
determine the nature of the State and the form of its government. The
more obvious of these contacts is the governmental, since the attitude
of a people is judged by the formal action of its Government, and,
indeed, in all three lines of contact the government of a State is
directly concerned and frequently active. But it may be of service to a
clearer appreciation of British attitude and policy before 1860, if the
intermingling of elements required by a strict chronological account of
relations is here replaced by a separate review of each of the three
main lines of contact.
Once independence had been yielded to the American Colonies, the
interest of the British Government rapidly waned in affairs American.
True, there still remained the valued establishments in the West Indies,
and the less considered British possessions on the continent to the
north of the United States. Meanwhile, there were occasional frictions
with America arising from uncertain claims drawn from the former
colonial privileges of the new state, or from boundary contentions not
settled in the treaty of peace. Thus the use of the Newfoundland
fisheries furnished ground for an acrimonious controversy lasting even
into the twentieth century, and occasionally rising to the danger point.
Boundary disputes dragged along through official argument, survey
commissions, arbitration, to final settlement, as in the case of the
northern limits of the State of Maine fixed at last by the Treaty of
Washington of 1842, and then on lines fair to both sides at any time in
the forty years of legal bickering. Very early, in 1817, an agreement
creditable to the wisdom and pacific intentions of both countries, was
reached establishing small and equal naval armaments on the Great Lakes.
The British fear of an American attack on Canada proved groundless as
time went on and was definitely set at rest by the strict curb placed by
the American Government upon the restless activities of such of its
citizens as sympathized with the followers of McKenzie and Papineau in
the Canadian rebellion of 1837[4].
None of these governmental contacts affected greatly the British policy
toward America. But the "War of 1812," as it is termed in the United
States, "Mr. Madison's War," as it was derisively named by Tory
contemporaries in Great Britain, arose from serious policies in which
the respective governments were in definite opposition. Briefly, this
was a clash between belligerent and neutral interests. Britain, fighting
at first for the preservation of Europe against the spread of French
revolutionary influence, later against the Napoleonic plan of Empire,
held the seas in her grasp and exercised with vigour all the accustomed
rights of a naval belligerent. Of necessity, from her point of view,
and as always in the case of the dominant naval belligerent, she
stretched principles of international law to their utmost interpretation
to secure her victory in war. America, soon the only maritime neutral of
importance, and profiting greatly by her neutrality, contested point by
point the issue of exceeded belligerent right as established in
international law. America did more; she advanced new rules and theories
of belligerent and neutral right respectively, and demanded that the
belligerents accede to them. Dispute arose over blockades, contraband,
the British "rule of 1756" which would have forbidden American trade
with French colonies in war time, since such trade was prohibited by
France herself in time of peace. But first and foremost as touching the
personal sensibilities and patriotism of both countries was the British
exercise of a right of search and seizure to recover British sailors.
Moreover this asserted right brought into clear view definitely opposed
theories as to citizenship. Great Britain claimed that a man once born a
British subject could never cease to be a subject--could never "alienate
his duty." It was her practice to fill up her navy, in part at least, by
the "impressment" of her sailor folk, taking them whenever needed, and
wherever found--in her own coast towns, or from the decks of her own
mercantile marine. But many British sailors sought security from such
impressment by desertion in American ports or were tempted to desert to
American merchant ships by the high pay obtainable in the
rapidly-expanding United States merchant marine. Many became by
naturalization citizens of the United States, and it was the duty of
America to defend them as such in their lives and business. America
ultimately came to hold, in short, that expatriation was accomplished
from Great Britain when American citizenship was conferred. On shore
they were safe, for Britain did not attempt to reclaim her subjects
from the soil of another nation. But she denied that the American flag
on merchant vessels at sea gave like security and she asserted a naval
right to search such vessels in time of peace, professing her complete
acquiescence in a like right to the American navy over British merchant
vessels--a concession refused by America, and of no practical value
since no American citizen sought service in the British merchant marine.
This "right of search" controversy involved then, two basic points of
opposition between the two governments. First America contested the
British theory of "once a citizen always a citizen[5]"; second, America
denied any right whatever to a foreign naval vessel in _time of peace_
to stop and search a vessel lawfully flying the American flag. The
_right of search in time of war_, that is, a belligerent right of
search, America never denied, but there was both then and later much
public confusion in both countries as to the question at issue since,
once at war, Great Britain frequently exercised a legal belligerent
right of search and followed it up by the seizure of sailors alleged to
be British subjects. Nor were British naval captains especially careful
to make sure that no American-born sailors were included in their
impressment seizures, and as the accounts spread of victim after victim,
the American irritation steadily increased. True, France was also an
offender, but as the weaker naval power her offence was lost sight of in
view of the, literally, thousands of _bona fide_ Americans seized by
Great Britain. Here, then, was a third cause of irritation connected
with impressment, though not a point of governmental dispute as to
right, for Great Britain professed her earnest desire to restore
promptly any American-born sailors whom her naval officers had seized
through error. In fact many such sailors were soon liberated, but a
large number either continued to serve on British ships or to languish
in British prisons until the end of the Napoleonic Wars[6].
There were other, possibly greater, causes of the War of 1812, most of
them arising out of the conflicting interests of the chief maritime
neutral and the chief naval belligerent. The pacific presidential
administration of Jefferson sought by trade restrictions, using embargo
and non-intercourse acts, to bring pressure on both England and France,
hoping to force a better treatment of neutrals. The United States,
divided in sympathy between the belligerents, came near to disorder and
disruption at home, over the question of foreign policy. But through all
American factions there ran the feeling of growing animosity to Great
Britain because of impressment. At last, war was declared by America in
1812 and though at the moment bitterly opposed by one section, New
England, that war later came to be regarded as of great national value
as one of the factors which welded the discordant states into a national
unity. Naturally also, the war once ended, its commercial causes were
quickly forgotten, whereas the individual, personal offence involved in
impressment and right of search, with its insult to national pride,
became a patriotic theme for politicians and for the press. To deny, in
fact, a British "right of search" became a national point of honour,
upon which no American statesman would have dared to yield to British
overtures.
In American eyes the War of 1812 appears as a "second war of
Independence" and also as of international importance in contesting an
unjust use by Britain of her control of the seas. Also, it is to be
remembered that no other war of importance was fought by America until
the Mexican War of 1846, and militant patriotism was thus centred on the
two wars fought against Great Britain. The contemporary British view
was that of a nation involved in a life and death struggle with a great
European enemy, irritated by what seemed captious claims, developed to
war, by a minor power[7]. To be sure there were a few obstinate Tories
in Britain who saw in the war the opportunity of smashing at one blow
Napoleon's dream of empire, and the American "democratic system." The
London _Times_ urged the government to "finish with Mr. Bonaparte and
then deal with Mr. Madison and democracy," arguing that it should be
England's object to subvert "the whole system of the Jeffersonian
school." But this was not the purpose of the British Government, nor
would such a purpose have been tolerated by the small but vigorous Whig
minority in Parliament.
The peace of 1814, signed at Ghent, merely declared an end of the war,
quietly ignoring all the alleged causes of the conflict. Impressment was
not mentioned, but it was never again resorted to by Great Britain upon
American ships. But the principle of right of search in time of peace,
though for another object than impressment, was soon again asserted by
Great Britain and for forty years was a cause of constant irritation and
a source of danger in the relations of the two countries. Stirred by
philanthropic emotion Great Britain entered upon a world crusade for the
suppression of the African Slave Trade. All nations in principle
repudiated that trade and Britain made treaties with various maritime
powers giving mutual right of search to the naval vessels of each upon
the others' merchant vessels. The African Slave Trade was in fact
outlawed for the flags of all nations. But America, smarting under the
memory of impressment injuries, and maintaining in any case the doctrine
that in time of peace the national flag protected a vessel from
interference or search by the naval vessels of any other power, refused
to sign mutual right of search treaties and denied, absolutely, such a
right for any cause whatever to Great Britain or to any other nation.
Being refused a treaty, Britain merely renewed her assertion of the
right and continued to exercise it.
Thus the right of search in time of peace controversy was not ended with
the war of 1812 but remained a constant sore in national relations, for
Britain alone used her navy with energy to suppress the slave trade, and
the slave traders of all nations sought refuge, when approached by a
British naval vessel, under the protection of the American flag. If
Britain respected the flag, and sheered off from search, how could she
stop the trade? If she ignored the flag and on boarding found an
innocent American vessel engaged in legal trade, there resulted claims
for damages by detention of voyage, and demands by the American
Government for apology and reparation. The real slave trader, seized
under the American flag, never protested to the United States, nor
claimed American citizenship, for his punishment in American law for
engaging in the slave trade was death, while under the law of any other
nation it did not exceed imprisonment, fine and loss of his vessel.
Summed up in terms of governmental attitude the British contention was
that here was a great international humanitarian object frustrated by an
absurd American sensitiveness on a point of honour about the flag. After
fifteen years of dispute Great Britain offered to abandon any claim to a
right of _search_, contenting herself with a right of _visit_, merely to
verify a vessel's right to fly the American flag. America asserted this
to be mere pretence, involving no renunciation of a practice whose
legality she denied. In 1842, in the treaty settling the Maine boundary
controversy, the eighth article sought a method of escape. Joint
cruising squadrons were provided for the coast of Africa, the British
to search all suspected vessels except those flying the American flag,
and these to be searched by the American squadron. At once President
Tyler notified Congress that Great Britain had renounced the right of
search. Immediately in Parliament a clamour was raised against the
Government for the "sacrifice" of a British right at sea, and Lord
Aberdeen promptly made official disclaimer of such surrender.
Thus, heritage of the War of 1812 right of search in time of peace was a
steady irritant. America doubted somewhat the honesty of Great Britain,
appreciating in part the humanitarian purpose, but suspicious of an
ulterior "will to rule the seas." After 1830 no American political
leader would have dared to yield the right of search. Great Britain for
her part, viewing the expansion of domestic slavery in the United
States, came gradually to attribute the American contention, not to
patriotic pride, but to the selfish business interests of the
slave-holding states. In the end, in 1858, with a waning British
enthusiasm for the cause of slave trade suppression, and with
recognition that America had become a great world power, Britain yielded
her claim to right of search or visit, save when established by Treaty.
Four years later, in 1862, it may well have seemed to British statesmen
that American slavery had indeed been the basic cause of America's
attitude, for in that year a treaty was signed by the two nations giving
mutual right of search for the suppression of the African Slave Trade.
In fact, however, this was but an effort by Seward, Secretary of State
for the North, to influence British and European opinion against the
seceding slave states of the South.
The right of search controversy was, in truth, ended when American power
reached a point where the British Government must take it seriously into
account as a factor in general world policy. That power had been
steadily and rapidly advancing since 1814. From almost the first moment
of established independence American statesmen visualized the
separation of the interests of the western continent from those of
Europe, and planned for American leadership in this new world.
Washington, the first President, emphasized in his farewell address the
danger of entangling alliances with Europe. For long the nations of
Europe, immersed in Continental wars, put aside their rivalries in this
new world. Britain, for a time, neglected colonial expansion westward,
but in 1823, in an emergency of European origin when France,
commissioned by the great powers of continental Europe, intervened in
Spain to restore the deposed Bourbon monarchy and seemed about to
intervene in Spanish America to restore to Spain her revolted colonies,
there developed in Great Britain a policy, seemingly about to draw
America and England into closer co-operation. Canning, for Britain,
proposed to America a joint declaration against French intervention in
the Americas. His argument was against the principle of intervention;
his immediate motive was a fear of French colonial expansion; but his
ultimate object was inheritance by Britain of Spain's dying influence
and position in the new world.
Canning's overture was earnestly considered in America. The
ex-Presidents, Jefferson and Madison, recommended its acceptance, but
the Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, opposed this, favouring
rather a separate declaration by the United States, and of this opinion
was also President Monroe. Thus arose the Monroe Doctrine announcing
American opposition to the principle of "intervention," and declaring
that the American continents were no longer to be regarded as open to
further colonization by European nations. The British emergency
situation with France, though already quieted, caused Monroe's Message
to be greeted in England with high approval. But Canning did not so
approve it for he saw clearly that the Monroe Doctrine was a challenge
not merely to continental Europe, but to England as well and he set
himself to thwart this threatening American policy. Had Canning's policy
been followed by later British statesmen there would have resulted a
serious clash with the United States[8].
In fact the Monroe Doctrine, imposing on Europe a self-denying policy of
non-colonial expansion toward the west, provided for the United States
the medium, if she wished to use it, for her own expansion in territory
and in influence. But for a time there was no need of additional
territory for that already hers stretched from the Atlantic to the Rocky
Mountains, two-thirds of the way from ocean to ocean. Her population was
growing fast. But four millions at the time of the Revolution, there
were thirteen millions in 1830, and of these nearly a third were already
across the Appalachian range and were constantly pressing on towards new
lands in the South and West. The Monroe Doctrine was the first definite
notice given to Europe of America's preconceived "destiny," but the
earlier realization of that destiny took place on lines of expansion
within her own boundaries. To this there could be no governmental
objection, whether by Great Britain or any other nation.
But when in the decade 1840 to 1850, the United States, to the view of
British statesmen, suddenly startled the world by entering upon a policy
of further territorial expansion, forsaking her peaceful progress and
turning toward war, there was a quick determination on a line of British
policy as regards the American advance. The first intimation of the new
American policy came in relation to the State of Texas which had
revolted from Mexico in 1836, and whose independence had been generally
recognized by 1842. To this new state Britain sent diplomatic and
consular agents and these reported two factions among the people--one
seeking admission to the American Union, one desiring the maintenance
of independence.
In 1841 Aberdeen had sent Lord Ashburton to America with instructions to
secure, if possible, a settlement of all matters in dispute. Here was a
genuine British effort to escape from national irritations. But before
the Treaty of 1842 was signed, even while it was in the earlier stages
of negotiation, the British Government saw, with alarm, quite new
questions arising, preventing, to its view, that harmonious relation
with the United States the desire for which had led to the Ashburton
mission. This new development was the appearance of an American fever
for territorial expansion, turning first toward Texas, but soon voiced
as a "manifest destiny" which should carry American power and
institutions to the Pacific and even into Central America. Among these
institutions was that of slavery, detested by the public of Great
Britain, yet a delicate matter for governmental consideration since the
great cotton manufacturing interests drew the bulk of their supplies of
raw cotton from the slave-holding states of America. If Texas, herself a
cotton state, should join the United States, dependence upon slave-grown
cotton would be intensified. Also, Texas, once acquired, what was there
to prevent further American exploitation, followed by slave expansion,
into Mexico, where for long British influence had been dominant?
On the fate of Texas, therefore, centred for a time the whole British
policy toward America. Pakenham, the British minister to Mexico, urged a
British pressure on Mexico to forgo her plans of reconquering Texas, and
strong British efforts to encourage Texas in maintaining her
independence. His theory foreshadowed a powerful buffer Anglo-Saxon
state, prohibiting American advance to the south-west, releasing Britain
from dependence on American cotton, and ultimately, he hoped, leading
Texas to abolish slavery, not yet so rooted as to be ineradicable. This
policy was approved by the British Government, Pakenham was sent to
Washington to watch events, a _chargé_, Elliot, was despatched to Texas,
and from London lines were cast to draw France into the plan and to
force the acquiescence of Mexico.
In this brief account of main lines of governmental contacts, it is
unnecessary to recite the details of the diplomatic conflict, for such
it became, with sharp antagonisms manifested on both sides. The basic
fact was that America was bent upon territorial expansion, and that
Great Britain set herself to thwart this ambition. But not to the point
of war. Aberdeen was so incautious at one moment as to propose to France
and Mexico a triple guarantee of the independence of Texas, if that
state would acquiesce, but when Pakenham notified him that in this case,
Britain must clearly understand that war with America was not merely
possible, but probable, Aberdeen hastened to withdraw the plan of
guarantee, fortunately not yet approved by Mexico[9].
The solution of this diplomatic contest thus rested with Texas. Did she
wish annexation to the United States, or did she prefer independence?
Elliot, in Texas, hoped to the last moment that Texas would choose
independence and British favour. But the people of the new state were
largely emigrants from the United States, and a majority of them wished
to re-enter the Union, a step finally accomplished in 1846, after ten
years of separate existence as a Republic. The part played by the
British Government in this whole episode was not a fortunate one. It is
the duty of Governments to watch over the interests of their subjects,
and to guard the prestige and power of the state. Great Britain had a
perfect _right_ to take whatever steps she chose to take in regard to
Texas, but the steps taken appeared to Americans to be based upon a
policy antagonistic to the American expansion policy of the moment. The
Government of Great Britain appeared, indeed, to have adopted a policy
of preventing the development of the power of the United States. Then,
fronted with war, she had meekly withdrawn. The basic British public
feeling, fixing the limits of governmental policy, of never again being
drawn into war with America, not because of fear, but because of
important trade relations and also because of essential liking and
admiration, in spite of surface antagonisms, was not appreciated in
America. Lord Aberdeen indeed, and others in governmental circles,
pleaded that the support of Texan independence was in reality perfectly
in harmony with the best interests of the United States, since it would
have tended toward the limitation of American slavery. And in the matter
of national power, they consoled themselves with prophecies that the
American Union, now so swollen in size, must inevitably split into two,
perhaps three, rival empires, a slave-holding one in the South, free
nations in North and West.
The fate of Texas sealed, Britain soon definitely abandoned all
opposition to American expansion unless it were to be attempted
northwards, though prophesying evil for the American madness. Mexico,
relying on past favours, and because of a sharp controversy between the
United States and Great Britain over the Oregon territory, expected
British aid in her war of 1846 against America. But she was sharply
warned that such aid would not be given, and the Oregon dispute was
settled in the Anglo-Saxon fashion of vigorous legal argument, followed
by a fair compromise. The Mexican war resulted in the acquisition of
California by the United States. British agents in this province of
Mexico, and British admirals on the Pacific were cautioned to take no
active steps in opposition.
Thus British policy, after Texan annexation, offered no barrier to
American expansion, and much to British relief the fear of the extension
of the American plans to Mexico and Central America was not realized.
The United States was soon plunged, as British statesmen had prophesied,
into internal conflict over the question whether the newly-acquired
territories should be slave or free.
The acquisition of California brought up a new problem of quick transit
between Atlantic and Pacific, and a canal was planned across Central
America. Here Britain and America acted together, at first in amity,
though the convention signed in 1850 later developed discord as to the
British claim of a protectorate over the Atlantic end of the proposed
canal at San Juan del Nicaragua. But Britain was again at war in Europe
in the middle 'fifties, and America was deep in quarrel over slavery at
home. On both sides in spite of much diplomatic intrigue and of
manifestations of national pride there was governmental desire to avoid
difficulties. At the end of the ten-year period Britain ceded to
Nicaragua her protectorate in the canal zone, and all causes of
friction, so reported President Buchanan to Congress in 1860, were
happily removed. Britain definitely altered her policy of opposition to
the growth of American power.
In 1860, then, the causes of governmental antagonisms were seemingly all
at an end. Impressment was not used after 1814. The differing theories
of the two Governments on British expatriation still remained, but
Britain attempted no practical application of her view. The right of
search in time of peace controversy, first eased by the plan of joint
cruising, had been definitely settled by the British renunciation of
1858. Opposition to American territorial advance but briefly manifested
by Britain, had ended with the annexation of Texas, and the fever of
expansion had waned in America. Minor disputes in Central America,
related to the proposed canal, were amicably adjusted.
But differences between nations, varying view-points of peoples,
frequently have deeper currents than the more obvious frictions in
governmental act or policy, nor can governments themselves fail to react
to such less evident causes. It is necessary to review the commercial
relations of the two nations--later to examine their political ideals.
In 1783 America won her independence in government from a colonial
status. But commercially she remained a British colony--yet with a
difference. She had formed a part of the British colonial system. All
her normal trade was with the mother country or with other British
colonies. Now her privileges in such trade were at an end, and she must
seek as a favour that which had formerly been hers as a member of the
British Empire. The direct trade between England and America was easily
and quickly resumed, for the commercial classes of both nations desired
it and profited by it. But the British colonial system prohibited trade
between a foreign state and British colonies and there was one channel
of trade, to and from the British West Indies, long very profitable to
both sides, during colonial times, but now legally hampered by American
independence. The New England States had lumber, fish, and farm products
desired by the West Indian planters, and these in turn offered needed
sugar, molasses, and rum. Both parties desired to restore the trade, and
in spite of the legal restrictions of the colonial system, the trade was
in fact resumed in part and either permitted or winked at by the British
Government, but never to the advantageous exchange of former times.
The acute stage of controversy over West Indian trade was not reached
until some thirty years after American Independence, but the uncertainty
of such trade during a long period in which a portion of it consisted
in unauthorized and unregulated exchange was a constant irritant to all
parties concerned. Meanwhile there came the War of 1812 with its
preliminary check upon direct trade to and from Great Britain, and its
final total prohibition of intercourse during the war itself. In 1800
the bulk of American importation of manufactures still came from Great
Britain. In the contest over neutral rights and theories, Jefferson
attempted to bring pressure on the belligerents, and especially on
England, by restriction of imports. First came a non-importation Act,
1806, followed by an embargo on exports, 1807, but these were so
unpopular in the commercial states of New England that they were
withdrawn in 1810, yet for a short time only, for Napoleon tricked the
United States into believing that France had yielded to American
contentions on neutral rights, and in 1811 non-intercourse was
proclaimed again with England alone. On June 18, 1812, America finally
declared war and trade stopped save in a few New England ports where
rebellious citizens continued to sell provisions to a blockading British
naval squadron.
For eight years after 1806, then, trade with Great Britain had steadily
decreased, finally almost to extinction during the war. But America
required certain articles customarily imported and necessity now forced
her to develop her own manufactures. New England had been the centre of
American foreign commerce, but now there began a trend toward
manufacturing enterprise. Even in 1814, however, at the end of the war,
it was still thought in the United States that under normal conditions
manufactured goods would again be imported and the general cry of
"protection for home industries" was as yet unvoiced. Nevertheless, a
group of infant industries had in fact been started and clamoured for
defence now that peace was restored. This situation was not unnoticed in
Great Britain where merchants, piling up goods in anticipation of peace
on the continent of Europe and a restored market, suddenly discovered
that the poverty of Europe denied them that market. Looking with
apprehension toward the new industries of America, British merchants,
following the advice of Lord Brougham in a parliamentary speech, dumped
great quantities of their surplus goods on the American market, selling
them far below cost, or even on extravagant credit terms. One object was
to smash the budding American manufactures.
This action of British merchants naturally stirred some angry patriotic
emotions in the circles where American business suffered and a demand
began to be heard for protection. But the Government of the United
States was still representative of agriculture, in the main, and while a
Tariff Bill was enacted in 1816 that Bill was regarded as a temporary
measure required by the necessity of paying the costs of the recent war.
Just at this juncture, however, British policy, now looking again toward
a great colonial empire, sought advantages for the hitherto neglected
maritime provinces of British North America, and thought that it had
found them by encouragement of their trade with the British West Indies.
The legal status of American trade with the West Indies was now enforced
and for a time intercourse was practically suspended.
This British policy brought to the front the issue of protection in
America. It not only worked against a return by New England from
manufacturing to commerce, but it soon brought into the ranks of
protectionists a northern and western agricultural element that had been
accustomed to sell surplus products to West Indian planters seeking
cheap food-stuffs for their slaves. This new protectionist element was
as yet not crystallized into a clamour for "home markets" for
agriculture, but the pressure of opinion was beginning to be felt, and
by 1820 the question of West Indian trade became one of constant
agitation and demanded political action. That action was taken on lines
of retaliation. Congress in 1818 passed a law excluding from American
ports any British vessel coming from a port access to which was denied
to an American vessel, and placing under bond in American ports British
vessels with prohibition of their proceeding to a British port to which
American vessels could not go. This act affected not merely direct trade
with the West Indies, but stopped the general custom of British ships of
taking part cargoes to Jamaica while _en route_ to and from the United
States. The result was, first, compromise, later, under Huskisson's
administration at the British Board of Trade, complete abandonment by
Britain of the exclusive trade basis of her whole colonial system.
The "retaliatory system" which J.Q. Adams regarded as "a new declaration
of independence," was, in fact, quickly taken up by other non-colonial
nations, and these, with America, compelled Great Britain to take stock
of her interests. Huskisson, rightly foreseeing British prosperity as
dependent upon her manufactures and upon the carrying trade, stated in
Parliament that American "retaliation" had forced the issue. Freedom of
trade in British ports was offered in 1826 to all non-colonial nations
that would open their ports within one year on terms of equality to
British ships. J.Q. Adams, now President of the United States, delayed
acceptance of this offer, preferring a treaty negotiation, and was
rebuffed by Canning, so that actual resumption of West Indian trade did
not take place until 1830, after the close of Adams' administration.
That trade never recovered its former prosperity.
Meanwhile the long period of controversy, from 1806 to 1830, had
resulted in a complete change in the American situation. It is not a
sufficient explanation of the American belief in, and practice of, the
theory of protection to attribute this alone to British checks placed
upon free commercial rivalry. Nevertheless the progress of America
toward an established system, reaching its highest mark for years in the
Tariff Bill of 1828, is distinctly related to the events just narrated.
After American independence, the partially illegal status of West Indian
trade hampered commercial progress and slightly encouraged American
manufactures by the mere seeking of capital for investment; the neutral
troubles of 1806 and the American prohibitions on intercourse increased
the transfer of interest; the war of 1812 gave a complete protection to
infant industries; the dumping of British goods in 1815 stirred
patriotic American feeling; British renewal of colonial system
restrictions, and the twelve-year quarrel over "retaliation" gave time
for the definite establishment of protectionist ideas in the United
States. But Britain was soon proclaiming for herself and for the world
the common advantage and the justice of a great theory of free trade.
America was apparently now committed to an opposing economic theory, the
first great nation definitely to establish it, and thus there resulted a
clear-cut opposition of principle and a clash of interests. From 1846,
when free trade ideas triumphed in England, the devoted British free
trader regarded America as the chief obstacle to a world-wide acceptance
of his theory.
The one bright spot in America, as regarded by the British free trader,
was in the Southern States, where cotton interests, desiring no
advantage from protection, since their market was in Europe, attacked
American protection and sought to escape from it. Also slave supplies,
without protection, could have been purchased more cheaply from England
than from the manufacturing North. In 1833 indeed the South had forced a
reaction against protection, but it proceeded slowly. In 1854 it was
Southern opinion that carried through Congress the reciprocity treaty
with the British American Provinces, partly brought about, no doubt, by
a Southern fear that Canada, bitter over the loss of special advantages
in British markets by the British free trade of 1846, might join the
United States and thus swell the Northern and free states of the Union.
Cotton interests and trade became the dominant British commercial tie
with the United States, and the one great hope, to the British minds, of
a break in the false American system of protection. Thus both in
economic theory and in trade, spite of British dislike of slavery, the
export trading interests of Great Britain became more and more directed
toward the Southern States of America. Adding powerfully to this was the
dependence of British cotton manufactures upon the American supply. The
British trade attitude, arising largely outside of direct governmental
contacts, was bound to have, nevertheless, a constant and important
influence on governmental action.
Governmental policy, seeking national power, conflicting trade and
industrial interests, are the favourite themes of those historians who
regard nations as determined in their relations solely by economic
causes--by what is called "enlightened self-interest." But governments,
no matter how arbitrary, and still more if in a measure resting on
representation, react both consciously and unconsciously to a public
opinion not obviously based upon either national or commercial rivalry.
Sometimes, indeed, governmental attitude runs absolutely counter to
popular attitude in international affairs. In such a case, the
historical estimate, if based solely on evidences of governmental
action, is a false one and may do great injustice to the essential
friendliness of a people.
How then, did the British people, of all classes, regard America before
1860, and in what manner did that regard affect the British Government?
Here, it is necessary to seek British opinion on, and its reaction to,
American institutions, ideals, and practices. Such public opinion can
be found in quantity sufficient to base an estimate only in travellers'
books, in reviews, and in newspapers of the period. When all these are
brought together it is found that while there was an almost universal
British criticism of American social customs and habits of life, due to
that insularity of mental attitude characteristic of every nation,
making it prefer its own customs and criticize those of its neighbours,
summed up in the phrase "dislike of foreigners"--it is found that
British opinion was centred upon two main threads; first America as a
place for emigration and, second, American political ideals and
institutions[10].
British emigration to America, a governmentally favoured colonization
process before the American revolution, lost that favour after 1783,
though not at first definitely opposed. But emigration still continued
and at no time, save during the war of 1812, was it absolutely stopped.
Its exact amount is unascertainable, for neither Government kept
adequate statistics before 1820. With the end of the Napoleonic wars
there came great distress in England from which the man of energy sought
escape. He turned naturally to America, being familiar, by hearsay at
least, with stories of the ease of gaining a livelihood there, and
influenced by the knowledge that in the United States he would find
people of his own blood and speech. The bulk of this earlier emigration
to America resulted from economic causes. When, in 1825, one energetic
Member of Parliament, Wilmot Horton, induced the Government to appoint a
committee to investigate the whole subject, the result was a mass of
testimony, secured from returned emigrants or from their letters home,
in which there constantly appeared one main argument influencing the
labourer type of emigrant; he got good wages, and he was supplied, as a
farm hand, with good food. Repeatedly he testifies that he had "three
meat meals a day," whereas in England he had ordinarily received but one
such meal a week.
Mere good living was the chief inducement for the labourer type of
emigrant, and the knowledge of such living created for this type
remaining in England a sort of halo of industrial prosperity surrounding
America. But there was a second testimony brought out by Horton's
Committee, less general, yet to be picked up here and there as evidence
of another argument for emigration to America. The labourer did not
dilate upon political equality, nor boast of a share in government,
indeed generally had no such share, but he did boast to his fellows at
home of the social equality, though not thus expressing it, which was
all about him. He was a common farm hand, yet he "sat down to meals"
with his employer and family, and worked in the fields side by side with
his "master." This, too, was an astounding difference to the mind of the
British labourer. Probably for him it created a clearer, if not
altogether universal and true picture of the meaning of American
democracy than would have volumes of writing upon political
institutions. Gradually there was established in the lower orders of
British society a visualization of America as a haven of physical
well-being and personal social happiness.
This British labouring class had for long, however, no medium of
expression in print. Here existed, then, an unexpressed public opinion
of America, of much latent influence, but for the moment largely
negligible as affecting other classes or the Government. A more
important emigrating class in its influence on opinion at home, though
not a large class, was composed about equally of small farmers and small
merchants facing ruin in the agricultural and trading crises that
followed the end of the European war. The British travellers' books
from 1810 to 1820 are generally written by men of this class, or by
agents sent out from co-operative groups planning emigration. Generally
they were discontented with political conditions at home, commonly
opposed to a petrified social order, and attracted to the United States
by its lure of prosperity and content. The books are, in brief, a
superior type of emigrant guide for a superior type of emigrant,
examining and emphasizing industrial opportunity.
Almost universally, however, they sound the note of superior political
institutions and conditions. One wrote "A republican finds here A
Republic, and the only Republic on the face of the earth that ever
deserved the name: where all are under the protection of equal laws; of
laws made by Themselves[11]." Another, who established an English colony
in the Western States of Illinois, wrote of England that he objected to
"being ruled and taxed by people who had no more right to rule and tax
us than consisted in the power to do it." And of his adopted country he
concludes: "I love the Government; and thus a novel sensation is
excited; it is like the development of a new faculty. I am become a
patriot in my old age[12]." Still another detailed the points of his
content, "I am here, lord and master of myself and of 100 acres of
land--an improvable farm, little trouble to me, good society and a good
market, and, I think, a fine climate, only a little too hot and dry in
summer; the parson gets nothing from me; my state and road taxes and
poor rates amount to §25.00 per annum. I can carry a gun if I choose; I
leave my door unlocked at night; and I can get snuff for one cent an
ounce or a little more[13]."
From the first days of the American colonial movement toward
independence there had been, indeed, a British interest in American
political principles. Many Whigs sympathized with these principles for
reasons of home political controversy. Their sympathy continued after
American independence and by its insistent expression brought out
equally insistent opposition from Tory circles. The British home
movement toward a more representative Government had been temporarily
checked by the extremes into which French Liberalism plunged in 1791,
causing reaction in England. By 1820 pressure was again being exerted by
British Liberals of intelligence, and they found arguments in such
reports as those just quoted. From that date onward, and especially just
before the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, yet always a factor, the
example of a prosperous American democracy was an element in British
home politics, lauded or derided as the man in England desired or not an
expansion of the British franchise. In the earlier period, however, it
is to be remembered that applause of American institutions did not mean
acceptance of democracy to the extent of manhood franchise, for no such
franchise at first existed in America itself. The debate in England was
simply whether the step forward in American democracy, was an argument
for a similar step in Great Britain.
Books, reviews and newspapers in Great Britain as the political quarrel
there grew in force, depicted America favourably or otherwise according
to political sympathies at home. Both before and after the Reform Bill
of 1832 this type of effort to mould opinion, by citation of America,
was widespread. Hence there is in such writing, not so much the
expression of public opinion, as of propaganda to affect that opinion.
Book upon book, review upon review, might be quoted to illustrate this,
but a few notable examples will suffice.
The most widely read and reviewed book on the United States before
1840, except the humorous and flippant characterization of America by
Mrs. Trollope, was Captain Basil Hall's three-volume work, published in
1829[14]. Claiming an open mind, he expected for his adverse findings a
readier credence. For adverse to American political institutions these
findings are in all their larger applications. In every line Hall
betrays himself as an old Tory of the 'twenties, fixed in his belief,
and convinced of the perfection and unalterableness of the British
Constitution. Captain Hamilton, who wrote in 1833, was more frank in
avowal of a purpose[15]. He states in his preface:
"... When I found the institutions and experiences of the
United States deliberately quoted in the reformed parliament,
as affording safe precedent for British legislation, and
learned that the drivellers who uttered such nonsense,
instead of encountering merited derision, were listened to
with patience and approbation by men as ignorant as
themselves, I certainly did feel that another work on America
was yet wanted, and at once determined to undertake a task
which inferior considerations would probably have induced me
to decline."
Harriet Martineau, ardent advocate of political reform at home, found in
the United States proofs for her faith in democracy[16]. Captain Marryat
belittled Miss Martineau, but in his six volumes proved himself less a
critic of America than an enemy of democracy. Answering a review of his
earlier volumes, published separately, he wrote in his concluding
volume: "I candidly acknowledge that the reviewer is right in his
supposition; my great object has been to do serious injury to the cause
of democracy[17]."
The fact was that British governing and intellectual classes were
suffering a recoil from the enthusiasms leading up to the step toward
democracy in the Reform of 1832. The electoral franchise was still
limited to a small minority of the population. Britain was still ruled
by her "wise men" of wealth and position. Meanwhile, however, just at
the moment when dominant Whig influence in England carried through that
step forward toward democratic institutions which Whigs had long lauded
in America, the latter country had progressed to manhood suffrage, or as
nearly all leading Englishmen, whether Whig or Tory, regarded it, had
plunged into the rule of the mob. The result was a rapid lessening in
Whig ruling-class expression of admiration for America, even before long
to the complete cessation of such admiration, and to assertions in Great
Britain that the Reform of 1832 was "final," the last step toward
democracy which Britain could safely take. It is not strange that the
books and reviews of the period from 1830 to 1840, heavily stress the
dangers and crudity of American democracy. They were written for what
was now a nearly unanimous British reading public, fearful lest Radical
pressure for still further electoral reform should preach the example of
the United States.
Thus after 1832 the previous sympathy for America of one section of the
British governing class disappears. More--it is replaced by a critical,
if not openly hostile attitude. Soon, with the rapid development of the
power and wealth of the United States, governing-class England, of all
factions save the Radical, came to view America just as it would have
viewed any other rising nation, that is, as a problem to be studied for
its influence on British prosperity and power. Again, expressions in
print reflect the changes of British view--nowhere more clearly than in
travellers' books. After 1840, for nearly a decade, these are devoted,
not to American political institutions, but to studies, many of them
very careful ones, of American industry and governmental policy.
Buckingham, one-time member of Parliament, wrote nine volumes of such
description. His work is a storehouse of fact, useful to this day to the
American historical student[18]. George Combe, philosopher and
phrenologist, studied especially social institutions[19]. Joseph Sturge,
philanthropist and abolitionist, made a tour, under the guidance of the
poet Whittier, through the Northern and Eastern States[20].
Featherstonaugh, a scientist and civil engineer, described the Southern
slave states, in terms completely at variance with those of Sturge[21].
Kennedy, traveller in Texas, and later British consul at Galveston, and
Warburton, a traveller who came to the United States by way of Canada,
an unusual approach, were both frankly startled, the latter professedly
alarmed, at the evidences of power in America[22]. Amazed at the energy,
growth and prosperity of the country and alarmed at the anti-British
feeling he found in New York City, Warburton wrote that "they
[Americans] only wait for matured power to apply the incendiary torch of
Republicanism to the nations of Europe[23]." Soon after this was written
there began, in 1848, that great tide of Irish emigration to America
which heavily reinforced the anti-British attitude of the City of New
York, and largely changed its character.
Did books dilating upon the expanding power of America reflect British
public opinion, or did they create it? It is difficult to estimate such
matters. Certainly it is not uninteresting that these books coincided in
point of time with a British governmental attitude of opposition, though
on peaceful lines, to the development of American power, and to the
adoption to the point of faith, by British commercial classes, of free
trade as opposed to the American protective system. But governing
classes were not the British public, and to the great unenfranchised
mass, finding voice through the writings of a few leaders, the
prosperity of America made a powerful appeal. Radical democracy was
again beginning to make its plea in Britain. In 1849 there was published
a study of the United States, more careful and exact than any previous
to Bryce's great work, and lauding American political institutions. This
was Mackay's "Western World," and that there was a public eager for such
estimate is evidenced by the fact that the book went through four
British editions in 1850[24]. At the end of the decade, then, there
appeared once more a vigorous champion of the cause of British
democracy, comparing the results of "government by the wise" with
alleged mob rule. Mackay wrote:
"Society in America started from the point to which society
in Europe is only yet finding. The equality of men is, to
this moment, its corner-stone ... that which develops itself
as the sympathy of class, becomes in America the general
sentiment of society.... We present an imposing front to the
world; but let us tear the picture and look at the canvas.
One out of every seven of us is a pauper. Every six
Englishmen have, in addition to their other enormous burdens,
to support a seventh between them, whose life is spent in
consuming, but in adding nothing to the source of their
common subsistence."
British governing classes then, forgoing after 1850 opposition to the
advance of American power, found themselves involved again, as before
1832, in the problem of the possible influence of a prosperous American
democracy upon an unenfranchised public opinion at home. Also, for all
Englishmen, of whatever class, in spite of rivalry in power, of opposing
theories of trade, of divergent political institutions, there existed a
vague, though influential, pride in the advance of a people of similar
race, sprung from British loins[25]. And there remained for all
Englishmen also one puzzling and discreditable American institution,
slavery--held up to scorn by the critics of the United States, difficult
of excuse among her friends.
Agitation conducted by the great philanthropist, Wilberforce, had early
committed British Government and people to a crusade against the African
slave trade. This British policy was clearly announced to the world in
the negotiations at Vienna in 1814-15. But Britain herself still
supported the institution of slavery in her West Indian colonies and it
was not until British humanitarian sentiment had forced emancipation
upon the unwilling sugar planters, in 1833, that the nation was morally
free to criticize American domestic slavery. Meanwhile great
emancipation societies, with many branches, all virile and active, had
grown up in England and in Scotland. These now turned to an attack on
slavery the world over, and especially on American slavery. The great
American abolitionist, Garrison, found more support in England than in
his own country; his weekly paper, _The Liberator_, is full of messages
of cheer from British friends and societies, and of quotations from a
sympathetic, though generally provincial, British press.
From 1830 to 1850 British anti-slavery sentiment was at its height. It
watched with anxiety the evidence of a developing struggle over slavery
in the United States, hopeful, as each crisis arose, that the free
Northern States would impose their will upon the Southern Slave States.
But as each crisis turned to compromise, seemingly enhancing the power
of the South, and committing America to a retention of slavery, the
hopes of British abolitionists waned. The North did indeed, to British
opinion, become identified with opposition to the expansion of slavery,
but after the "great compromise of 1850," where the elder American
statesmen of both North and South proclaimed the "finality" of that
measure, British sympathy for the North rapidly lessened. Moreover,
after 1850, there was in Britain itself a decay of general humanitarian
sentiment as regards slavery. The crusade had begun to seem hopeless and
the earlier vigorous agitators were dead. The British Government still
maintained its naval squadron for the suppression of the African slave
trade, but the British official mind no longer keenly interested itself
either in this effort or in the general question of slavery.
Nevertheless American slavery and slave conditions were still, after
1850, favourite matters for discussion, almost universally critical, by
English writers. Each renewal of the conflict in America, even though
local, not national in character, drew out a flood of comment. In the
public press this blot upon American civilization was a steady subject
for attack, and that attack was naturally directed against the South.
The London _Times_, in particular, lost no opportunity of presenting the
matter to its readers. In 1856, a Mr. Thomas Gladstone visited Kansas
during the height of the border struggles there, and reported his
observations in letters to the _Times_. The writer was wholly on the
side of the Northern settlers in Kansas, though not hopeful that the
Kansas struggle would expand to a national conflict. He constantly
depicted the superior civilization, industry, and social excellence of
the North as compared with the South[26].
Mrs. Stowe's _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ excited greater interest in England
than in America itself. The first London edition appeared in May, 1852,
and by the end of the year over one million copies had been sold, as
opposed to one hundred and fifty thousand in the United States. But if
one distinguished writer is to be believed, this great British interest
in the book was due more to English antipathy to America than to
antipathy to slavery[27]. This writer was Nassau W. Senior, who, in
1857, published a reprint of his article on "American Slavery" in the
206th number of the _Edinburgh Review_, reintroducing in his book
extreme language denunciatory of slavery that had been cut out by the
editor of the _Review_[28]. Senior had been stirred to write by the
brutal attack upon Charles Sumner in the United States Senate after his
speech of May 19-20, 1856, evidence, again, that each incident of the
slavery quarrel in America excited British attention.
Senior, like Thomas Gladstone, painted the North as all anti-slavery,
the South as all pro-slavery. Similar impressions of British
understanding (or misunderstanding) are received from the citations of
the British provincial press, so favoured by Garrison in his
_Liberator_[29]. Yet for intellectual Britain, at least--that Britain
which was vocal and whose opinion can be ascertained in spite of this
constant interest in American slavery, there was generally a fixed
belief that slavery in the United States was so firmly established that
it could not be overthrown. Of what use, then, the further expenditure
of British sympathy or effort in a lost cause? Senior himself, at the
conclusion of his fierce attack on the Southern States, expressed the
pessimism of British abolitionists. He wrote, "We do not venture to hope
that we, or our sons, or our grandsons, will see American slavery
extirpated, or even materially mitigated[30]."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: State Department, Eng., Vol. LXXIX, No. 135, March 27,
1862.]
[Footnote 2: Walpole, _Russell_, Vol. II, p. 367.]
[Footnote 3: _Life of Lady John Russell_, p. 197.]
[Footnote 4: There was a revival of this fear at the end of the American
Civil War. This will be commented on later.]
[Footnote 5: This was the position of President and Congress: yet the
United States had not acknowledged the right of an American citizen to
expatriate himself.]
[Footnote 6: Between 1797 and 1801, of the sailors taken from American
ships, 102 were retained, 1,042 were discharged, and 805 were held for
further proof. (Updyke, _The Diplomacy of the War of 1812_, p. 21.)]
[Footnote 7: The people of the British North American Provinces regarded
the war as an attempt made by America, taking advantage of the European
wars, at forcible annexation. In result the fervour of the United Empire
Loyalists was renewed, especially in Upper Canada. Thus the same two
wars which fostered militant patriotism in America against England had
the same result in Canadian sentiment against America.]
[Footnote 8: Temperley, "Later American Policy of George Canning" in
_Am. Hist. Rev._, XI, 783. Also _Cambridge History of British Foreign
Policy_, Vol. II, ch. 2.]
[Footnote 9: Much has recently been published on British policy in
Texas. See my book, _British Interests and Activities in Texas,
1838-1846_, Johns Hopkins Press, Balt., 1910. Also Adams, Editor,
_British Diplomatic Correspondence concerning the Republic of Texas_,
The Texas State Historical Association, Austin, Texas, 1918.]
[Footnote 10: In my studies on British-American relations, I have read
the leading British reviews and newspapers, and some four hundred
volumes by British travellers. For a summary of the British travellers
before 1860 see my article "The Point of View of the British Traveller
in America," in the _Political Science Quarterly_, Vol. XXIX, No. 2,
June, 1914.]
[Footnote 11: John Melish, _Travels_, Vol. I, p. 148.]
[Footnote 12: Morris Birkbeck, _Letters from Illinois_, London, 1818, p.
29.]
[Footnote 13: Letter in Edinburgh _Scotsman_, March, 1823. Cited by
_Niles Register_, Vol. XXV, p. 39.]
[Footnote 14: _Travels in North America_, 1827-28, London, 1829.]
[Footnote 15: Captain Thomas Hamilton, _Men and Manners in America_,
Edinburgh and London, 1833. 2 vols.]
[Footnote 16: _Society in America_, London, 1837. 3 vols. _Retrospect of
Western Travel_, London, 1838. 2 vols.]
[Footnote 17: Captain Frederick Marryat, _A Diary in America, with
Remarks on Its Institutions_, Vol. VI, p. 293.]
[Footnote 18: James Silk Buckingham, _America, Historical, Statistic and
Descriptive_, London, 1841-43. 9 vols.]
[Footnote 19: _Notes on the United States of North America during a
phrenological visit_, 1838-9-40, Edinburgh, 1841. 3 vols.]
[Footnote 20: _A Visit to the United States in 1841_, London, 1842.]
[Footnote 21: George William Featherstonaugh, _Excursion through the
Slave States_, London, 1844. 2 vols.]
[Footnote 22: William Kennedy, _Texas: The Rise, Progress and Prospects
of the Republic of Texas_, London, 1841. 2 vols. George Warburton,
_Hochelaga: or, England in the New World_, London, 1845. 2 vols.]
[Footnote 23: Warburton, _Hochelaga_, 5th Edition, Vol. II, pp. 363-4.]
[Footnote 24: Alexander Mackay, _The Western World: or, Travels through
the United States in 1846-47_, London, 1849.]
[Footnote 25: This is clearly indicated in Parliament itself, in the
debate on the dismissal by the United States in 1856 of Crampton, the
British Minister at Washington, for enlistment activities during the
Crimean War.--_Hansard_, 3rd. Ser., CXLIII, 14-109 and 120-203.]
[Footnote 26: Gladstone's letters were later published in book form,
under the title _The Englishman in Kansas_, London, 1857.]
[Footnote 27: "The evil passions which 'Uncle Tom' gratified in England
were not hatred or vengeance [of slavery], but national jealousy and
national vanity. We have long been smarting under the conceit of
America--we are tired of hearing her boast that she is the freest and
the most enlightened country that the world has ever seen. Our clergy
hate her voluntary system--our Tories hate her democrats--our Whigs hate
her parvenus--our Radicals hate her litigiousness, her insolence, and
her ambition. All parties hailed Mrs. Stowe as a revolter from the
enemy." Senior, _American Slavery_, p. 38.]
[Footnote 28: The reprint is without date, but the context shows the
year to be 1857.]
[Footnote 29: For example the many British expressions quoted in
reference to John Brown's raid, in _The Liberator_ for February 10,
1860, and in succeeding issues.]
[Footnote 30: Senior, _American Slavery_, p. 68.]