FOREIGN AFFAIRS
To the people who had been engaged in changing Illinois from a
wilderness into a civilized State, Europe had been an abstraction, a
mere colored spot upon a map, which in their lives meant nothing. Though
England had been the home of their ancestors, it was really less
interesting than the west coast of Africa, which was the home of the
negroes; for the negroes were just now of vastly more consequence than
the ancestors. So even Dahomey had some claim to be regarded as a more
important place than Great Britain, and the early settlers wasted little
thought on the affairs of Queen Victoria. Amid these conditions,
absorbed even more than his neighbors in the exciting questions of
domestic politics, and having no tastes or pursuits which guided his
thoughts abroad, Mr. Lincoln had never had occasion to consider the
foreign relations of the United States, up to the time when he was
suddenly obliged to take an active part in managing them.
At an early stage of the civil dissensions each side hoped for the
good-will of England. For obvious reasons, that island counted to the
United States for more than the whole continent of Europe; indeed, the
continental nations were likely to await and to follow her lead.
Southern orators, advocating secession, assured their hearers that "King
Cotton" would be the supreme power, and would compel that realm of
spinners and weavers to friendship if not to alliance with the
Confederacy. Northern men, on the other hand, expressed confidence that
a people with the record of Englishmen against slavery would not
countenance a war conducted in behalf of that institution; nor did they
allow their hopes to be at all impaired by the consideration that, in
order to found them upon this support, they had to overlook the fact
that they were at the same time distinctly declaring that slavery really
had nothing to do with the war, in which only and strictly the question
of the Union, the integrity of the nation, was at stake. When the issue
was pressing for actual decision, each side was disappointed; and each
found that it had counted upon a motive which fell far short of exerting
the anticipated influence. It was, of course, the case that England
suffered much from the short supply of cotton; but she made shift to
procure it elsewhere, while the working people, sympathizing with the
North, were surprisingly patient. Thus the political pressure arising
from commercial distress was much less than had been expected, and the
South learned that cotton was only a spurious monarch. Not less did the
North find itself deceived; for the upper and middle classes of Great
Britain appeared absolutely indifferent to the humanitarian element
which, as they were assured, underlay the struggle. Perhaps they were
not to be blamed for setting aside these assurances, and accepting in
place thereof the belief that the American leaders spoke the truth when
they solemnly told the North that the question at issue was purely and
simply of "the Union." The unfortunate fact was that it was necessary to
say one thing to Englishmen and a different thing to Americans.
That which really did inspire the feelings and the wishes, and which did
influence, though it could not be permitted fully to control, the action
of England, had not been counted upon by either section of the country;
perhaps its existence had not been appreciated. This was the intense
dislike felt for the American republic by nearly all Englishmen who were
above the social grade of mechanics and mill operatives. The extent and
force of this antipathy and even contempt were for the first time given
free expression under the irresistible provocation which arose out of
the delightful likelihood of the destruction of the United States. The
situation at least gave to the people of that imperiled country a chance
to find out in what estimation they were held across the water. The
behavior of the English government and the attitude of the English press
during the early part of the civil war have been ascribed by different
historians to one or another dignified political or commercial motive.
But while these influences were certainly not absent, yet the English
newspapers poured an inundating flood of evidence to show that genuine
and deep-seated dislike, not to say downright hatred, was by very much
the principal motive. This truth is so painful and unfortunate that many
have thought best to suppress or deny it; but no historian is entitled
to use such discretion. From an early period, therefore, in the
administration of Mr. Lincoln, he and Mr. Seward had to endeavor to
preserve friendly relations with a power which, if she could only make
entirely sure of the worldly wisdom of yielding to her wishes, would
instantly recognize the independence of the South. This being the case,
it was matter for regret that the rules of international law concerning
blockades, contraband of war, and rights of neutrals were perilously
vague and unsettled.
Earl[168] Russell was at this time in charge of her majesty's foreign
affairs. Because in matters domestic he was liberal-minded, Americans
had been inclined to expect his good-will; but he now disappointed them
by appearing to share the prejudices of his class against the republic.
A series of events soon revealed his temper. So soon as there purported
to be a Confederacy, an understanding had been reached betwixt him and
the French emperor that both powers should take the same course as to
recognizing it. About May 1 he admitted three Southern commissioners to
an audience with him, though not "officially." May 13 there was
published a proclamation, whereby Queen Victoria charged and commanded
all her "loving subjects to observe a strict neutrality" in and during
the hostilities which had "unhappily commenced between the government of
the United States and certain States styling themselves 'the Confederate
States of America.'" This action--this assumption of a position of
"neutrality," as between enemies--taken while the "hostilities" had
extended only to the single incident of Fort Sumter, gave surprise and
some offense to the North. It was a recognition of belligerency; that is
to say, while not in any other respect recognizing the revolting States
as an independent power, it accorded to them the rights of a
belligerent. The magnitude very quickly reached by the struggle would
have made this step necessary and proper, so that, if England had only
gone a trifle more slowly, she would soon have reached the same point
without exciting any anger; but now the North felt that the queen's
government had been altogether too forward in assuming this position at
a time when the question of a real war was still in embryo. Moreover,
the unfriendliness was aggravated by the fact that the proclamation was
issued almost at the very hour of the arrival in London of Mr. Charles
Francis Adams, the new minister sent by Mr. Lincoln to the court of St.
James. It seemed, therefore, not open to reasonable doubt that Earl
Russell had purposely hastened to take his position before he could hear
from the Lincoln administration.
When Mr. Seward got news of this, his temper gave way; so that, being
still new to diplomacy, he wrote a dispatch to Mr. Adams wherein
occurred words and phrases not so carefully selected as they should have
been. He carried it to Mr. Lincoln, and soon received it back revised
and corrected, instructively. _A priori_, one would have anticipated the
converse of this.
The essential points of the paper were:--
That Mr. Adams would "desist from all intercourse whatever, unofficial
as well as official, with the British government, so long as it shall
continue intercourse of either kind with the domestic enemies of this
country."
That the United States had a "right to expect a more independent if not
a more friendly course" than was indicated by the understanding between
England and France; but that Mr. Adams would "take no notice of that or
any other alliance."
He was to pass by the question as to whether the blockade must be
respected in case it should not be maintained by a competent force, and
was to state that the "blockade is now, and will continue to be, so
maintained, and therefore we expect it to be respected."
As to recognition of the Confederacy, either by publishing an
acknowledgment of its sovereignty, or officially receiving its
representatives, he was to inform the earl that "no one of these
proceedings will pass unquestioned." Also, he might suggest that "a
concession of belligerent rights is liable to be construed as a
recognition" of the Confederate States. Recognition, he was to say,
could be based only on the assumption that these States were a
self-sustaining power. But now, after long forbearance, the United
States having set their forces in motion to suppress the insurrection,
"the true character of the pretended new state is at once revealed. It
is seen to be a power existing in pronunciamento only. It has never won
a field. It has obtained no forts that were not virtually betrayed into
its hands or seized in breach of trust. It commands not a single port on
the coast, nor any highway out from its pretended capital by land. Under
these circumstances, Great Britain is called upon to intervene, and give
it body and independence by resisting our measures of suppression.
British recognition would be British intervention to create within our
own territory a hostile state by overthrowing this republic itself." In
Mr. Seward's draft a menacing sentence followed these words, but Mr.
Lincoln drew his pen through it.
Mr. Adams was to say that the treatment of insurgent privateers was "a
question exclusively our own," and that we intended to treat them as
pirates.[169] If Great Britain should recognize them as lawful
belligerents and give them shelter, "the laws of nations afford an
adequate and proper remedy;"--"_and we shall avail ourselves of it_,"
added Mr. Seward; but again Mr. Lincoln's prudent pen went through these
words of provocation.
Finally Mr. Adams was instructed to offer the adhesion of the United
States to the famous Declaration of the Congress of Paris, of 1856,
which concerned sundry matters of neutrality.
The letter ended with two paragraphs of that patriotic rodomontade which
seems eminently adapted to domestic consumption in the United States,
but which, if it ever came beneath the eye of the British minister,
probably produced an effect very different from that which was aimed at.
Mr. Lincoln had the good taste to write on the margin: "Drop all from
this line to the end;" but later he was induced to permit the nonsense
to stand, since it was really harmless.
The amendments made by the President in point of quantity were trifling,
but in respect of importance were very great. All that he did was here
and there to change or to omit a phrase, which established no position,
but which in the strained state of feeling might have had serious
results. The condition calls to mind the description of the summit of
the Alleghany Ridge, where the impulses given by almost imperceptible
inequalities in the surface of the rock have for their ultimate result
the dispatching of mighty rivers either through the Atlantic slope to
the ocean, or down the Mississippi valley to the Gulf of Mexico. A few
adjectives, two or three ever so little sentences, in this dispatch,
might have led to peace or to war; and peace or war with England almost
surely meant, respectively, Union or Disunion in the United States. In
fact, no more important state paper was issued by Mr. Seward. It
established our relations with Great Britain, and by consequence also
with France and with the rest of Europe, during the whole period of the
civil war. Its positions, moderate in themselves, and resolutely laid
down, were never materially departed from. The English minister did not
afterward give either official or unofficial audiences to accredited
rebel emissaries; the blockade was maintained by a force so competent
that the British government acquiesced in it; no recognition of the
Confederacy was ever made, either in the ways prohibited or in any way
whatsoever; it is true that bitter controversies arose concerning
Confederate privateers, and to some extent England failed to meet our
position in this matter; but it was rather the application of our rule
than the rule itself which was in dispute; and she afterward, under the
Geneva award, made full payment for her derelictions. The behavior and
the proposal of terms, which constituted a practical exclusion of the
United States from the benefits of the Treaty of Paris, certainly
involved something of indignity; but in this the country had no actual
_rights_; and to speak frankly, since she had refused to come in when
invited, she could hardly complain of an inhospitable reception when,
under the influence of immediate and stringent self-interest, her
diplomatists saw fit to change their course. So, on the whole, it is not
to be denied that delicate and novel business in the untried department
of foreign diplomacy was managed with great skill, under trying
circumstances. A few months later, in his message to Congress, at the
beginning of December, 1861, the President referred to our foreign
relations in the following paragraphs:--
"The disloyal citizens of the United States, who have offered the ruin
of our country in return for the aid and comfort which they have invoked
abroad, have received less patronage and encouragement than they
probably expected. If it were just to suppose, as the insurgents have
seemed to assume, that foreign nations, in this case, discarding all
moral, social, and treaty obligations, would act solely and selfishly
for the speedy restoration of commerce, including especially the
acquisition of cotton, those nations appear as yet not to have seen
their way to their object more directly or clearly through the
destruction than through the preservation of the Union. If we could dare
to believe that foreign nations are actuated by no higher principle than
this, I am quite sure a sound argument could be made to show them that
they can reach their aim more readily and easily by aiding to crush this
rebellion than by giving encouragement to it.
"The principal lever relied on by these insurgents for exciting foreign
nations to hostility against us, as already intimated, is the
embarrassment of commerce. Those nations, however, not improbably saw
from the first that it was the Union which made as well our foreign as
our domestic commerce. They can scarcely have failed to perceive that
the effort for disunion produces the existing difficulty; and that one
strong nation promises more durable peace and a more extensive,
valuable, and reliable commerce than can the same nation broken into
hostile fragments.
"It is not my purpose to review our discussions with foreign states;
because, whatever might be their wishes or dispositions, the integrity
of our country and the stability of our government mainly depend not
upon them but on the loyalty, virtue, patriotism, and intelligence of
the American people. The correspondence itself with the usual
reservations is herewith submitted. I venture to hope it will appear
that we have practiced prudence and liberality toward foreign powers,
averting causes of irritation, and with firmness maintaining our own
rights and honor."
While this carefully measured language certainly fell far short of
expressing indifference concerning European action, it was equally far
from betraying any sense of awe or dependence as towards the great
nations across the Atlantic. Yet in fact beneath its self-contained
moderation there unquestionably was politic concealment of very profound
anxiety. Since the war did in fact maintain to the end an entirely
domestic character, it is now difficult fully to appreciate the
apprehensions which were felt, especially in its earlier stages, lest
England or France or both might interfere with conclusive effect in
favor of the Confederacy. It was very well for Mr. Lincoln to state the
matter in such a way that it would seem an unworthy act upon their part
to encourage a rebellion, especially a pro-slavery rebellion; and very
well for him also to suggest that their commerce could be better
conducted with one nation than with two. In plain fact, they were
considering nothing more lofty than their own material interests, and
upon this point their distinguished statesmen did not feel the need of
seeking information or advice from the Western lawyer who had just been
so freakishly picked out of a frontier town to take charge of the
destinies of the United States. The only matter which they contemplated
with some interest, and upon which they could gather enlightenment from
his words, related to the greater or less degree of firmness and
confidence with which he was likely to meet them; for even in their eyes
this must be admitted to constitute one of the elements in the
situation. It was, therefore, fortunate that Mr. Lincoln successfully
avoided an appearance either of alarm or of defiance.
But, difficult as it may have been skillfully to compose the sentences
of the message so far as it concerned foreign relationships, some
occurrences were taking place, at this very time of the composition,
which reduced verbal manoeuvring to insignificance. A sudden and
unexpected menace was happily turned into a substantial aid and
advantage; and the administration, not long after it had firmly declared
its resolution to maintain its clear and lawful rights, was given the
opportunity greatly to strengthen its position by an event which, at
first, seemed untoward enough. In the face of very severe temptation to
do otherwise, it had the good sense to seize this opportunity, and to
show that it had upon its own part the will not only to respect, but to
construe liberally as against itself, the rights of neutrals; also that
it had the power to enforce its will, upon the instant, even at the cost
of bitterly disappointing the whole body of loyal citizens in the very
hour of their rejoicing.
The story of Mason and Slidell is familiar: accredited as envoys of the
Confederacy to England and France, in the autumn of 1861, they ran the
blockade at Charleston and came to Havana. There they did not conceal
their purpose to sail for England, by the British royal mail steamship
Trent, on November 7. Captain Wilkes of the United States steam sloop of
war San Jacinto, hearing all this, lay in wait in the Bahama Channel,
sighted the Trent on November 8, fired a shot across her bows, and
brought her to. He then sent on board a force of marines to search her
and fetch off the rebels. This was done against the angry protests of
the Englishman, and with such slight force as constituted technical
compulsion, but without violence. The Trent was then left to proceed on
her voyage. The envoys, or "missionaries," as they were called by way of
avoiding the recognition of an official character, were soon in
confinement in Fort Warren, in Boston Harbor. Everywhere at the North
the news produced an outburst of joy and triumph. Captain Wilkes was the
hero of the hour, and received every kind of honor and compliment. The
secretary of the navy wrote to him a letter of congratulation, declaring
that his conduct was "marked by intelligence, ability, decision, and
firmness, and has the emphatic approval of this department." Secretary
Stanton was outspoken in his praise. When Congress convened, on December
1, almost the first thing done by the House of Representatives was to
hurry through a vote of thanks to the captain for his "brave, adroit,
and patriotic conduct." The newspaper press, public meetings, private
conversation throughout the country, all reechoed these joyous
sentiments. The people were in a fever of pleasurable excitement. It
called for some nerve on the part of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward suddenly
to plunge them into a chilling bath of disappointment.
Statements differ as to what was Mr. Seward's earliest opinion in the
matter.[170] But all writers agree that Mr. Lincoln did not move with
the current of triumph. He was scarcely even non-committal. On the
contrary, he is said at once to have remarked that it did not look right
to stop the vessel of a friendly power on the high seas and take
passengers out of her; that he did not understand whence Captain Wilkes
derived authority to turn his quarter-deck into a court of admiralty;
that he was afraid the captives might prove to be white elephants on our
hands; that we had fought Great Britain on the ground of like doings
upon her part, and that now we must stick to American principles; that,
if England insisted upon our surrendering the prisoners, we must do so,
and must apologize, and so bind her over to keep the peace in relation
to neutrals, and to admit that she had been wrong for sixty years.
The English demand came quickly, forcibly, and almost offensively. The
news brought to England by the Trent set the whole nation in a blaze of
fury,--and naturally enough, it must be admitted. The government sent
out to the navy yards orders to make immediate preparations for war; the
newspapers were filled with abuse and menace against the United States;
the extravagance of their language will not be imagined without actual
reference to their pages. Lord Palmerston hastily sketched a dispatch to
Lord Lyons, the British minister at Washington, demanding instant
reparation, but couched in language so threatening and insolent as to
make compliance scarcely possible. Fortunately, in like manner as Mr.
Seward had taken to Mr. Lincoln his letter of instructions to Mr. Adams,
so Lord Palmerston also felt obliged to lay his missive before the
queen, and the results in both cases were alike; for once at least
royalty did a good turn to the American republic. Prince Albert, ill
with the disease which only a few days later carried him to his grave,
labored hard over that important document, with the result that the
royal desire to eliminate passion sufficiently to make a peaceable
settlement possible was made unmistakably plain, and therefore the
letter, as ultimately revised by Earl Russell, though still disagreeably
peremptory in tone, left room for the United States to set itself right
without loss of self-respect. The most annoying feature was that Great
Britain insisted upon instant action; if Lord Lyons did not receive a
favorable reply within seven days after formally preferring his demand
for reparation, he was to call for his passports. In other words, delay
by diplomatic correspondence and such ordinary shilly-shallying meant
war. As the London "Times" expressed it, America was not to be allowed
"to retain what she had taken from us, at the cheap price of an
interminable correspondence."
December 19 this dispatch reached Lord Lyons; he talked its contents
over with Mr. Seward informally, and deferred the formal communication
until the 23d. Mr. Lincoln drew up a proposal for submission to
arbitration. But it could not be considered; the instructions to Lord
Lyons gave no time and no discretion. It was aggravating to concede what
was demanded under such pressure; but the President, as has been said,
had already expressed his opinion upon the cardinal point,--that England
had the strength of the case. Moreover he remarked, with good common
sense, "One war at a time." So it was settled that the emissaries must
be surrendered. The "prime minister of the _Northern States of
America_," as the London "Times" insultingly called Mr. Seward, was wise
enough to agree; for, under the circumstances, to allow discourtesy to
induce war was unjustifiable. On December 25 a long cabinet council was
held, and the draft of Seward's reply was accepted, though with sore
reluctance. The necessity was cruel, but fortunately it was not
humiliating; for the President had pointed to the road of honorable exit
in those words which Mr. Lossing heard uttered by him on the very day
that the news arrived. In 1812 the United States had fought with England
because she had insisted, and they had denied, that she had the right to
stop their vessels on the high seas, to search them, and to take from
them British subjects found on board them. Mr. Seward now said that the
country still adhered to the ancient principle for which it had once
fought, and was glad to find England renouncing her old-time error.
Captain Wilkes, not acting under instructions, had made a mistake. If he
had captured the Trent and brought her in for adjudication as prize in
our admiralty courts, a case might have been maintained and the
prisoners held. He had refrained from this course out of kindly
consideration for the many innocent persons to whom it would have caused
serious inconvenience; and, since England elected to stand upon the
strict rights which his humane conduct gave to her, the United States
must be bound by their own principles at any cost to themselves.
Accordingly the "envoys" were handed over to the commander of the
English gunboat Rinaldo, at Provincetown, on January 1, 1862.
The decision of the President and the secretary of state was thoroughly
wise. Much hung upon it; "no one," says Arnold, "can calculate the
results which would have followed upon a refusal to surrender these
men." An almost certain result would have been a war with England; and a
highly probable result would have been that erelong France also would
find pretext for hostilities, since she was committed to friendship with
England in this matter, and moreover the emperor seemed to have a
restless desire to interfere against the North. What then would have
been the likelihood of ultimate success in that domestic struggle,
which, by itself, though it did not exhaust, yet very severely taxed
both Northern endurance and Northern resources? It is fair also to these
two men to say that, in reaching their decision, instead of receiving
aid or encouragement from outside, they had the reverse. Popular feeling
may be estimated from the utterances which, even after there had been
time for reflection, were made by men whose positions curbed them with
the grave responsibilities of leadership. In the House of
Representatives Owen Lovejoy pledged himself to "inextinguishable
hatred" of Great Britain, and promised to bequeath it as a legacy to his
children; and, while he was not engaging in the war for the integrity of
his own country, he vowed that if a war with England should come, he
would "carry a musket" in it. Senator Hale, in thunderous oratory,
notified the members of the administration that if they would "not
listen to the voice of the people, they would find themselves engulfed
in a fire that would consume them like stubble; they would be helpless
before a power that would hurl them from their places." The great
majority at the North, though perhaps incapable of such felicity of
expression, was undoubtedly not very much misrepresented by the
vindictive representative and the exuberant senator. Yet a brief period,
in which to consider the logic of the position, sufficed to bring nearly
all to intelligent conclusions; and then it was seen that what had been
done had been rightly and wisely done. There was even a sense of pride
in doing fairly and honestly, without the shuffling evasions of
diplomacy, an act of strict right; and the harder the act the greater
was the honor. The behavior of the people was generous and intelligent,
and greatly strengthened the government in the eyes of foreigners. By
the fullness and readiness of this reparation England was put under a
moral obligation to treat the United States as honorably as the United
States treated her. She did not do so, it is true; but in more ways than
one she ultimately paid for not doing so. At any rate, for the time
being, after this action it would have been nothing less than indecent
for her to recognise the Confederacy at once; and a little later
prudence had the like restraining effect. Yet though recognition and war
were avoided they never entirely ceased to threaten, and Mr. Chittenden
is perfectly correct in saying that "every act of our government was
performed under the impending danger of a recognition of the
Confederacy, a disregard of the blockade, and the actual intervention of
Great Britain in our attempt to suppress an insurrection upon our own
territory."
FOOTNOTES:
[168] Lord John Russell was raised to the peerage, as Earl Russell, just
after this time, _i.e._, in July, 1861.
[169] An effort was made to carry out this theory in the case of the
crew of the privateer Savannah; but the jury failed to agree, and the
attempt was not afterward renewed, privateersmen being exchanged like
other prisoners of war.
[170] Mr. Welles declares that Seward at first opposed the surrender;
but Mr. Chittenden asserts that he knows that Mr. Seward's first opinion
coincided with his later action; see Mr. Welles's _Lincoln and Seward_,
and Chittenden's _Recollections_, 148.
End of Project Gutenberg's Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I., by John T. Morse