ENGLISH SYMPATHY FOR THE CONFEDERACY.
From the beginning of the secession movement the central aim of the
Federal government and of the loyal people of the United States was to
preserve the Union. It was the principle of union which had brought
the American colonies together and enabled them to establish their
independence. It was only after a “more perfect union” had been formed
that prosperity and power at home and influence abroad had come to the
United States as a nation. It was clearly seen that, if the principle
of secession were once established, there would be nothing to prevent
the great American commonwealth from crumbling into fragments. The
honorable position of the United States among the nations of the world,
as well as all of the good results at home which had been gained by
more than three-quarters of a century of union, would be irretrievably
lost. But these were not the only bad effects likely to follow
successful secession. It was the avowed intention of the leaders of
this movement to establish in the southern states a republic whose very
corner-stone was slavery. With an immense slave population, with almost
absolute control of the cotton supply of the world, with a people that
took pride in the military art, with able and experienced leaders, the
founding and future success of such a republic would have been attended
by evil consequences which no one could foretell.
For these reasons the government and loyal people of the United
States earnestly hoped that the secession movement would not receive
any support or encouragement from foreign nations, especially from
England. The members of the English cabinet at that time were all
bitterly opposed to slavery and had been in full sympathy with the
great movements which had utterly destroyed it within the limits of the
empire.
The existence of slavery in the South had caused much annoyance to
the English government and people. Negro subjects of the queen were
being constantly kidnapped in southern ports and sold into slavery. To
obtain redress in such cases was impossible. The escape of fugitive
slaves into British territory was another cause of much trouble. Only
a short time before the secession movement began all England had
been shocked by the report that a British captain had been tarred
and feathered at Charleston for allowing a negro to sit down at the
table with him in his own vessel. All of these matters, however,
were quickly forgotten. From the very beginning it was evident that
English sympathy was with the South. It was apparently forgotten that
such a course meant support and encouragement for human slavery--that
institution which was so abhorred by the people and statesmen of
England. Consistency in this matter alone would seem to indicate that
the British government and people could not afford to sympathize with
any sort of movement which had for its principal object the founding
of a new republic especially to perpetuate and extend slavery. None
of these considerations, however, seemed to exert any influence. With
rare exceptions, the press, the people, and the government were heart
and soul with the South in its efforts for the dismemberment of the
American commonwealth. Mr. Justin McCarthy says: “The vast majority of
what are called the governing classes were on the side of the South.
London club life was virtually all southern. The most powerful papers
in London, and the most popular papers as well, were open partisans of
the southern confederation.”[1] A writer in the Atlantic Monthly for
November, 1861, says: “We have read at least three English newspapers
for each week that has passed since our troubles began; we have been a
reader of these papers for a series of years. In not one of them have
we met the sentence or the line which pronounces hopefully, with bold
assurance for the renewed life of our Union. In by far the most of them
there is reiterated the most positive and dogged averment that there is
no future for us.”
Even the great and conservative English quarterlies aided the
newspapers in their efforts to encourage and justify the secession
movement. A writer in the Edinburgh Review discussed the situation in
the United States. His ability to do this may be readily inferred from
his assertion that, “under the existing constitution of the United
States which the freemen of the North are in arms now to defend,
slavery must be considered to form a part and parcel of the law of the
Union.” To establish this proposition he then quoted from an amendment
to the constitution which, he said, provided that that instrument
could never in future be so amended as to give congress power to
abolish or interfere with slavery in any state. This, the writer said,
was “the very last amendment or addition to the constitution passed on
the 3d March of this year, that is, on the eve of President Lincoln’s
inauguration.” In reviewing the condition of the people of the North he
said: “They are fighting for territorial dominion.” In defining for his
readers just what was meant by “territorial dominion,” he proceeded to
tell them that it was “the power to enforce the will of the North over
the South by superior force--to compel the minority, which is a local
majority, to submit, in a word, to command the country and to subdue
the people. If this be not the object for which the Americans of the
Union are contending against the disunionists, we confess our inability
to apprehend it, for no lesser object could justify a war conducted on
such a scale.”[2]
A writer in the Quarterly Review said: “We believe the conquest of the
South to be a hopeless dream, and the reunion of the states in one
all-powerful republic an impossibility.
“There is verge and room enough on the vast continent of America for
two or three, or even more, powerful republics, and each may flourish
undisturbed, if so inclined, without being a source of disquiet to its
neighbors. There will be no loss of anything which conduces to the
general happiness of mankind. For the contest on the part of the North
now is undisguisedly for empire.
“As to the attempt to subjugate the Confederate States, supposing it
succeeded, what then? Is the North prepared to hold the South by the
same tenure that Austria holds Venetia? And is there a statesman in the
Union who believes that in future it could be held in any other way?
“But the idea of a federal republic of which the one-half is in deadly
hostility to the other, and coerced into a hateful partnership,
involves a practical contradiction. It would no longer be the union of
free states but a tyranny.”[3] The same writer confidently predicted
secession among the northern states on account of excessive taxation
and the hardships incident to war.
A writer in the Westminster Review said: “The North is fighting to
defend an abstraction--the constitution--the South to defend his home,
his wife and his children.
“Without nicely balancing the virtues of the contending parties, they
(Englishmen) can not help believing that moderation, justice and
national honor will find ampler development in a divided republic.”[4]
Early in 1861 a prominent Englishman of Liverpool published a book
designed to inform the British public concerning the American
situation. This book was extensively circulated and did much to
influence public opinion in England. The most extreme views of the
secessionists were upheld and defended. The attempt to restore the
Union was denounced as a lamentable delusion which had been undertaken
as a result of excitement in the North. The author’s position is well
stated in the following quotation: “Secession is a just and clear
constitutional right of the states, and no violation of any enactment
of the Federal compact.”[5]
The queen in her speech from the throne, February 5, 1861, referred
to American affairs and expressed a conventional wish that the
“differences might be susceptible of a satisfactory adjustment.”
Concerning this expression Mr. Toumlin Smith soon afterward said:
“Those last loose words are characteristic of the very loose notions
that are common in England on the subject of what used to be the United
States of North America. It is, from the very nature of the facts,
no other than impossible that the ‘differences’ can be ‘susceptible’
(whatever that means) of satisfactory adjustment.”[6]
Such expressions of opinion from these various sources, advanced so
early in the great struggle and uttered with such confidence, were on
many accounts most unwarranted and mischievous. The press was a most
powerful factor in molding and directing English public opinion in
favor of the Confederacy. Its course also tended to prejudice the Union
cause in the eyes of the world and, at the same time, to establish the
insurgent cause as a just one. This produced a corresponding degree of
discouragement among the friends of the Union.
A very large majority of the most prominent public men of England
never lost an opportunity to express unfavorable opinions concerning
the northern cause. The following quotations are indicative of the
sentiment which prevailed among them:
Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton: “I venture to predict that the younger men
here present will live to see not two, but at least four, separate and
sovereign commonwealths arising out of those populations which a year
ago united their legislation under one president and carried their
merchandise under one flag. I believe that such separation will be
attended with happy results to the safety of Europe and the development
of American civilization. If it could have been possible that as
population and wealth increased all the vast continent of America,
with her mighty sea-board and the fleets which her increasing ambition
as well as her extending commerce would have formed and armed, could
have remained under one form of government, in which the executive
has little or no control over a populace exceedingly adventurous
and excitable, why, then America would have hung over Europe like a
gathering and destructive thunder cloud. No single kingdom in Europe
could have been strong enough to maintain itself against a nation that
had consolidated the gigantic resources of a quarter of the globe.”[7]
Lord John Russell: “The struggle is on the one side for empire, and on
the other for power.”[8] On another occasion he said: “On the one hand,
President Lincoln, in behalf of the northern portion of the _late_
United States, has issued a proclamation declaratory of an intention
to subject the ports of the southern portion of the _late_ Union to a
vigorous blockade,”[9] etc.
The Earl of Shrewsbury: “I see in America the trial of democracy and
its failure. I believe that the dissolution of the Union is inevitable,
and that men now before me will live to see an aristocracy established
in America.”[10]
Sir John Pakington, M. P.: “From President Lincoln downward there is
not a man in America who will venture to tell us that he really thinks
it possible that by the force of circumstances the North can hope to
compel the South to again join them in constituting the United States.”
Right Honorable William E. Gladstone, chancellor of the exchequer: “The
Federal government can never succeed in putting down the rebellion. If
it should, it would only be the preface and introduction of political
difficulties far greater than the war itself.”[11] On another and later
occasion he said that the president of the Southern Confederacy, Mr.
Jefferson Davis, “had made an army, had made a navy and, more than
that, had made a nation.”[12]
In a speech delivered at Dover, in the autumn of 1861, Lord Palmerston,
the English premier, spoke in a taunting manner of the “fast running
which signalized the battle of Bull Run.”[13]
Soon after the beginning of the American civil war, Edward A. Freeman,
the distinguished English historian, published a noted work, the title
page of which reads as follows: “History of federal government from
the foundation of the Achaian League to the disruption of the United
States.” A list of examples of federal government is given. One of them
is, “The United States, A. D. 1778-1862.”
These expressions from the leading public men of England leave
no doubt as to the sentiments of the influential classes in that
country. They hoped for the triumph of slavery, the success of the
secession principle, and the division and ruin of the great American
commonwealth. Such sentiments were, doubtless, inspired by jealousy and
hatred of America, and by the thought that English commercial and other
interests would be greatly advanced by the success of the Confederacy.
AUTHORITIES AND REFERENCES.
1. Atlantic Monthly, November, 1861.
2. Blaine, James G.: Twenty Years of Congress.
3. De Gasparin: L’Amérique devant l’Europe.
4. Edinburgh Review, October, 1861.
5. Freeman, E. A.: History of Federal Government.
6. London Quarterly Review, No. 221.
7. Lossing, B. J.: Civil War in America.
8. McCarthy, Justin: History of Our Own Times.
9. Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Vol. LXVII
10. Russell’s Life of Gladstone.
11. Spence, Jas.: The American Union.
12. Westminster Review, Vol. XXI.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] History of Our Own Times, Vol. II, pp. 224-225.
[2] Edinburgh Review, Oct., 1861.
[3] London Quarterly Review, No. 221.
[4] Westminster Review, Vol. XXI, p. 212.
[5] Spence’s “The American Union,” p. 246.
[6] Parliamentary Remembrancer, Vol. IV, p. 3.
[7] From an address before the Agricultural Society of Hertford County,
September 25, 1861.
[8] Speech at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1861.
[9] Extract from dispatch of Lord J. Russell to Lord Cowley, British
minister at Paris, dated Foreign Office, May 6, 1861. See Parliamentary
Papers, 1862, Vol. LXVII, p. 531. The italics are the author’s.
[10] Speech at Worcester, 1861.
[11] Speech at Edinburgh, January, 1862.
[12] Speech at Newcastle, October 9, 1862. See Russell’s Life of
Gladstone, p. 155; also Justin McCarthy’s History of Our Own Times,
Vol. II, p. 225.
[13] See De Gasparin’s account of this matter in his “L’Amérique devant
l’Europe,” chapter on the conduct of England in the beginning of the
American civil war.