Both personal disinclination to the proposal of abolition and judgment that nothing would come of it made Mason cautious in expressing himself to Palmerston. Mason felt that he was stultifying his country in condemning slavery. Hence in roundabout language, "with such form of allusion to the concession we held in reserve, as would make him necessarily comprehend it[1266]," and turning again and again to a supposed "latent, undisclosed obstacle[1267]" to British recognition, Mason yet made clear the object of his visit. The word slavery was not mentioned by him, but Palmerston promptly denied that slavery in the South had ever been, or was now, a barrier to recognition; British objections to recognition were those which had long since been stated, and there was nothing "underlying" them. On March 26, Mason called on the Earl of Donoughmore, a Tory friend of the South with whom he had long been in close touch, and asked whether he thought Palmerston's Government could be induced by a Southern abolition of slavery to recognize the Confederacy. The reply was "that the time had gone by now...." This time the words "slavery" and "abolition" were spoken boldly[1268], and Donoughmore was positive that if, in the midsummer of 1863, when Lee was invading Pennsylvania, the South had made its present overture, nothing could have prevented British recognition. The opinion clashed with Mason's own conviction, but in any case no more was to be hoped, now, from his overture. Only a favourable turn in the war could help the South.

There was no public knowledge in London of this "last card" Southern effort in diplomacy, though there were newspaper rumours that some such move was on foot, but with a primary motive of restoring Southern fighting power by putting the negroes in arms. British public attention was fixed rather upon a possible last-moment reconciliation of North and South and a restored Union which should forget its domestic troubles in a foreign war. Momentarily somewhat of a panic overcame London society and gloomy were the forebodings that Great Britain would be the chosen enemy of America. Like rumours were afloat at Washington also. The Russian Minister, Stoeckl, reported to his Government that he had learned from "a sure source" of representations made to Jefferson Davis by Blair, a prominent Unionist and politician of the border state of Maryland, looking to reconstruction and to the sending by Lincoln of armies into Canada and Mexico. Stoeckl believed such a war would be popular, but commented that "Lincoln might change his mind[1269] to-morrow." In London the Army and Navy Gazette declared that Davis could not consent to reunion and that Lincoln could not offer any other terms of peace, but that a truce might be patched up on the basis of a common aggression against supposed foreign enemies[1270]. Adams pictured all British society as now convinced that the end of the war was near, and bitter against the previous tone and policy of such leaders of public opinion as the Times, adding that it was being "whispered about that if the feud is reconciled and the Union restored, and a great army left on our hands, the next manifestation will be one of hostility to this country[1271]."

The basis of all this rumour was Blair's attempt to play the mediator. He so far succeeded that on January 31, 1865, Lincoln instructed Seward to go to Fortress Monroe to meet "commissioners" appointed by Davis. But Lincoln made positive in his instructions three points:

(1) Complete restoration of the Union.

(2) No receding on emancipation.

(3) No cessation of hostilities "short of an end of the war, and the disbanding of all forces hostile to the Government."

A few days later the President decided that his own presence was desirable and joined his Secretary of State in the "Hampton Roads Conference" of February 3. It quickly appeared that the Confederates did indeed hope to draw the North into a foreign war for a "traditional American object," using the argument that after such a war restoration of the Union would be easily accomplished. The enemy proposed was not Great Britain but France, and the place of operations Mexico. There was much discussion of this plan between Seward and Stephens, the leading Southern Commissioner, but Lincoln merely listened, and when pressed for comment stuck fast to his decision that no agreement whatever would be entered into until the South had laid down its arms. The Southerners urged that there was precedent for an agreement in advance of cessation of hostilities in the negotiations between Charles I and the Roundheads. Lincoln's reply was pithy: "I do not profess to be posted in history. On all such matters I turn you over to Seward. All I distinctly recollect about the case of Charles I is that he lost his head in the end[1272]."

When news of the holding of this conference reached England there occurred a panic on the Stock Exchange due to the uncertainty created by the prospect of an immediate end of the American War. "The consternation," wrote Adams, "was extraordinary[1273]." What did the United States intend to do? "The impression is now very general that peace and restoration at home are synonymous with war with this country." There existed an "extraordinary uneasiness and indefinite apprehension as to the future." So reported Adams to Seward; and he advised that it might be well for the United States "to consider the question how far its policy may be adapted to quiet this disturbance"; due allowance should be made for the mortification of those leaders who had been so confident of Southern victory and for expressions that might now fall from their lips; it was possible that reassurances given by the United States might aid in the coming elections in retaining the Government in power—evidently, in Adams' opinion, a result to be desired[1274].

Adams' advice as to the forthcoming elections was but repetition of that given earlier and with more emphasis[1275]. Apparently Seward was then in no mood to act on it, for his reply was distinctly belligerent in tone, recapitulating British and Canadian offences in permitting the enemy to use their shores, and asserting that the measures now proposed of abrogating the reciprocity treaty of 1854 with Canada and the agreement of 1817 prohibiting armaments on the Great Lakes, were but defensive measures required to protect American soil[1276]. These matters Adams had been instructed to take up with Russell, but with discretion as to time and he had ventured to postpone them as inopportune. Professing entire agreement with the justice of Seward's complaints he nevertheless wrote that to press them "at this moment would be only playing into the hands of the mischief-makers, and disarming our own friends[1277]." The day before this was written home Seward, at Washington, on March 8, recalled his instruction as to the agreement of 1817, stating that Russell might be informed the United States had no intention of increasing its armaments on the Great Lakes[1278].

Thus there were incidents offering ground for a British excitement over a prospective war with America, even though no such intention was seriously entertained by the North. The British Government did not share this fear, but Delane, of the Times, kept it alive in the public mind, and indeed was sincere in efforts to arouse his readers to the danger. "I do not know what grounds Delane has for it," wrote W.H. Russell to his American friend Bigelow, "but he is quite sure Uncle Samuel is about to finish off the dreadful Civil War with another war with us scarcely less horrible[1279]." Governmental circles, however, belittled the agitation. Burnley, temporarily representing England at Washington, was assured by Seward, and so reported, that all these rumours of a foreign war were of Southern origin, had in fact been actually elaborated at the Hampton Roads Conference, but were perfectly understood by the North as but part of the Southern game, and that the Southern offer had been flatly refused[1280]. In a parliamentary debate in the Commons on March 13, arising out of governmental estimates for military expenditures in Canada, opportunity was given for a discussion of relations with America. A few Members gave voice to the fear of war, but the general tone of the debate was one of confidence in the continuance of peaceful relations. Bright, in a vigorous and witty speech, threw right and left criticisms of Parliament, the Press, and individuals, not sparing members of the Government, but expressed the utmost confidence in the pacific policy of Lincoln. As one known to be in close touch with America his words carried weight[1281]. Palmerston gave assurances that the present relations between the two Governments were perfectly friendly and satisfactory. The effect of the debate, reported Adams, was to quiet the panic[1282], yet at the same time England was now awake to and somewhat alarmed by, America's "prodigious development of physical power during the war." To quiet this, Adams recommended "prudence and moderation in tone[1283]."

Thus the actual cessation of hostilities in America and the possible effect of this event on foreign relations had been for some time anticipated and estimated in Great Britain[1284]. The news of Lee's surrender, therefore, caused no great surprise since the Times and other papers had been preparing the public for it[1285]. Newspaper comment on the event followed closely that of the Times, rendering honour to the militant qualities of the South and to Lee, but writing finis to the war:

"Such is the end of the great army which, organized by the extraordinary genius of one man, aided by several other commanders of eminent ability, has done such wonders in this war. Not even the Grand Army of Napoleon himself could count a series of more brilliant victories than the force which, raised chiefly from the high-spirited population of Virginia, has defeated so many invasions of the State, and crushed the hopes of so many Northern generals. Chief and soldiers have now failed for the first and last time. They were victorious until victory was no longer to be achieved by human valour, and then they fell with honour[1286]."

The people of the North, also, were complimented for their slowly developed but ultimate ability in war, and especially for "a patience, a fortitude, and an energy which entitle them to rank among the very first of military nations[1287]." No one remained to uphold the Southern banner in Europe save the Confederate agents, and, privately, even they were hopeless. Mason, it is true, asserted, as if bolstering his own courage, that "this morning's" news did not mean an overwhelming disaster; it could not be wholly true; even if true it must mean peace on the basis of separation; finally, "5th. I know that no terms of peace would be accepted that did not embrace independence." But at the conclusion of this letter he acknowledged:

"I confess that all this speculation rests on, what I assume, that Lee surrendered only in expectation of a peace derived from his interview with Grant—and that no terms of peace would be entertained that did not rest on independence[1288]."

But Slidell saw more clearly. He replied:

"I cannot share your hopefulness. We have seen the beginning of the end. I, for my part, am prepared for the worst. With Lee's surrender there will soon be an end to our regular organized armies and I can see no possible good to result from a protracted guerilla warfare. We are crushed and must submit to the yoke. Our children must bide their time for vengeance, but you and I will never revisit our homes under our glorious flag. For myself I shall never put my foot on a soil from which flaunts the hated Stars and Stripes.... I am sick, sick at heart[1289]."

The news of Lee's surrender arrived at the same moment with that of a serious injury to Seward in a runaway accident, and in its editorial on the end of the war the Times took occasion to pay a tribute to the statesman whom it had been accustomed to berate.

"There seems to be on the part of President Lincoln a desire to conciliate vanquished fellow-citizens. Under the guidance of Mr. Seward, who has creditably distinguished himself in the Cabinet by his moderate counsels, and whose life will, we trust, be spared at this crisis to the Union, he may by gentle measures restore tranquillity, and perhaps, before his term of office expires, calm in some degree the animosities which have been raised by these years of war[1290]."

Nor was this insincere, for Seward had, first in the estimate of British statesmen, more slowly in the press and with the public, come to be regarded in an aspect far different from that with which he was generally viewed in 1861. There was real anxiety at the reports of Seward's accident, but when, in less than a week, there was received also the news of the assassination of Lincoln and of the brutal attack on Seward, all England united in expressions of sympathy and horror. "Few events of the present century," wrote Adams, "have created such general consternation and indignation[1291]."

In Ford's Theatre on the evening of April 14, Lincoln was shot by Booth, a fanatical Southerner, who had gained entrance to the box where the President was sitting. Lincoln died early the next morning. On the same evening, at about ten o'clock, an unknown man was admitted to Seward's house on the plea that he had a message from the physician, passed upstairs, but was stopped by Seward's son at the door of the sick room. Beating the son into semi-unconsciousness with a revolver which had missed fire, the stranger burst open the door, attacked the Secretary as he lay in bed with a bowie-knife, slashing at his throat, until Seward rolled off the bed to the floor. Seward's throat was "cut on both sides, his right cheek nearly severed from his face"; his life was saved, probably, because of an iron frame worn to support the jaw fractured in the runaway accident nine days before[1292]. The assailant fought his way out of the house and escaped. For some days Seward's life was despaired of, whether from his injuries or from shock.

These tragic occurrences were the outcome of a revengeful spirit in the hearts of a few extreme Southerners, and in no sense represented the feeling of the South. It was inevitable, however, that abroad so horrible a crime should react both to the detriment of the Confederacy and to the advantage of the North. Sympathy with the North took the form of a sudden exaltation of the personality of Lincoln, bringing out characterizations of the man far different from those which had been his earlier in the war. The presence of a "rural attorney" in the Presidential office had seemed like the irony of fate in the great crisis of 1861. Even so acute an observer as Lyons could then write, "Mr. Lincoln has not hitherto given proof of his possessing any natural talents to compensate for his ignorance of everything but Illinois village politics. He seems to be well meaning and conscientious, in the measure of his understanding, but not much more[1293]." But Lyons was no more blind than his contemporaries, for nearly all characterizations, whether American or foreign, were of like nature.

But the slow progress of the years of war had brought a different estimate of Lincoln—a curious blending of admiration for the growth of his personal authority and for his steadiness of purpose, with criticism of his alleged despotism. Now, with his death, following so closely the collapse of the Confederacy, there poured out from British press and public a great stream of laudation for Lincoln almost amounting to a national recantation. In this process of "whitening Abraham's tomb," as a few dyed-in-the-wool Southern sympathizers called it, Punch led the way in a poem by Tom Taylor:

"You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier, You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace, Broad for the self-complacent British sneer, His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face."

* * * * *

"Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer, To lame my pencil and confute my pen— To make me own this hind of princes peer, This rail-splitter a true-born king of men[1294]."

Less emotional than most papers, but with a truer estimate of Lincoln, stood the Times. Severely reprobating the act of Booth and prophesying a disastrous effect in the treatment of the conquered South, it proceeded:

"Starting from a humble position to one of the greatest eminence, and adopted by the Republican party as a make-shift, simply because Mr. Seward and their other prominent leaders were obnoxious to different sections of the party, it was natural that his career should be watched with jealous suspicion. The office cast upon him was great, its duties most onerous, and the obscurity of his past career afforded no guarantee of his ability to discharge them. His shortcomings moreover were on the surface. The education of a man whose early years had been spent in earning bread by manual labour had necessarily been defective, and faults of manner and errors of taste repelled the observer at the outset. In spite of these drawbacks, Mr. Lincoln slowly won for himself the respect and confidence of all. His perfect honesty speedily became apparent, and, what is, perhaps, more to his credit, amid the many unstudied speeches which he was called upon from time to time to deliver, imbued though they were with the rough humour of his early associates, he was in none of them betrayed into any intemperance of language towards his opponents or towards neutrals. His utterances were apparently careless, but his tongue was always under command. The quality of Mr. Lincoln's administration which served, however, more than any other to enlist the sympathy of bystanders was its conservative progress. He felt his way gradually to his conclusions, and those who will compare the different stages of his career one with another will find that his mind was growing throughout the course of it."

* * * * *

"The gradual change of his language and of his policy was most remarkable. Englishmen learnt to respect a man who showed the best characteristics of their race in his respect for what is good in the past, acting in unison with a recognition of what was made necessary by the events of passing history[1295]."

This was first reaction. Two days later, commenting on the far warmer expressions of horror and sympathy emanating from all England, there appeared another and longer editorial:

"If anything could mitigate the distress of the American people in their present affliction, it might surely be the sympathy which is expressed by the people of this country. We are not using the language of hyperbole in describing the manifestation of feeling as unexampled. Nothing like it has been witnessed in our generation.... But President Lincoln was only the chief of a foreign State, and of a State with which we were not infrequently in diplomatic or political collision. He might have been regarded as not much more to us than the head of any friendly Government, and yet his end has already stirred the feelings of the public to their uttermost depths."

* * * * *

"... a space of twenty-four hours has sufficed not only to fill the country with grief and indignation, but to evoke almost unprecedented expressions of feeling from constituted bodies. It was but on Wednesday that the intelligence of the murder reached us, and on Thursday the Houses of Lords and Commons, the Corporation of the City of London, and the people of our chief manufacturing towns in public meeting assembled had recorded their sentiments or expressed their views. In the House of Lords the absence of precedent for such a manifestation was actually made the subject of remark.

"That much of this extraordinary feeling is due to the tragical character of the event and the horror with which the crime is regarded is doubtless true, nor need we dissemble the the fact that the loss which the Americans have sustained is also thought our own loss in so far as one valuable guarantee for the amity of the two nations may have been thus removed. But, upon the whole, it is neither the possible embarrassment of international relations nor the infamous wickedness of the act itself which has determined public feeling. The preponderating sentiment is sincere and genuine sympathy—- sorrow for the chief of a great people struck down by an assassin, and sympathy for that people in the trouble which at a crisis of their destinies such a catastrophe must bring. Abraham Lincoln was as little of a tyrant as any man who ever lived. He could have been a tyrant had he pleased, but he never uttered so much as an ill-natured speech.... In all America there was, perhaps, not one man who less deserved to be the victim of this revolution than he who has just fallen[1296]."

The Ministry did not wait for public pressure. Immediately on receipt of the news, motions were made, April 27, in both Lords and Commons for an address to the Queen, to be debated "Monday next," expressing "sorrow and indignation" at the assassination of Lincoln[1297]. April 28, Russell instructed Bruce to express at Washington that "the Government, the Parliament, and the Nation are affected by a unanimous feeling of abhorrence of the criminals guilty of these cowardly and atrocious crimes, and sympathy for the Government and People of the United States[1298]...." Russell wrote here of both Lincoln and Seward. The Queen wrote a personal letter of sympathy to Mrs. Lincoln. Already Bruce had written from Washington that Lincoln "was the only friend of the South in his party[1299]," and he was extremely anxious that Seward's recovery might be hastened, fearing the possibility of Sumner's assumption of the Secretaryship of State. "We miss terribly the comparative moderation of Lincoln and Seward[1300]."



The American Minister naturally became the centre toward which the public outpouring of sympathy was directed. "The excitement in this country has been deep and wide, spreading through all classes of society. My table is piled high with cards, letters and resolutions[1301]...." Indeed all the old sources of "addresses" to Adams on emancipation and many organizations having no professed interest in that subject now sent to him resolutions—the emancipation societies, of horror, indignation, and even accusation against the South; the others of sympathy, more moderate in tone, yet all evincing an appreciation of the great qualities of Lincoln and of the justice of the cause of the North, now victorious. Within two weeks Adams reported over four hundred such addresses from Emancipation Societies, Chambers of Commerce, Trades Unions, municipalities, boroughs, churches, indeed from every known type of British organizations[1302].

On May 1 the motion for the address to the Crown came up for debate. In the Lords, Russell emphasized the kindly and forgiving qualities of Lincoln as just those needed in America, and now lost by his death. Derby, for the Opposition, expressed the horror of the world at Booth's act, joined in expressions of sympathy to the United States, but repeated the old phrase about the "North fighting for empire, the South for independence," and hinted that the unusual step now being taken by Parliament had in it a "political object," meaning that the motion had been introduced in the hope of easing American irritation with Great Britain[1303]. It was not a tactful speech, but Derby's lieutenant in the Commons, Disraeli, saved his party from criticism by what was distinctly the most thoughtful and best-prepared utterance of the day. Palmerston was ill. The Government speech was made by Grey, who incautiously began by asserting that the majority of the people of Great Britain had always been on the side of the North and was met by cries of "No, no" and "Hear, hear." Disraeli concluded the debate. He said:

"There are rare instances when the sympathy of a nation approaches those tenderer feelings that generally speaking, are supposed to be peculiar to the individual, and to form the happy privilege of private life; and this is one. Under all circumstances we should have bewailed the catastrophe at Washington; under all circumstances we should have shuddered at the means by which it was accomplished. But in the character of the victim, and even in the accessories of his last moments there is something so homely and so innocent that it takes as it were the subject out of all the pomp of history and the ceremonial of diplomacy; it touches the heart of nations, and appeals to the domestic sentiment of mankind.

"Sir, whatever the various and varying opinions in this House, and in the country generally on the policy of the late President of the United States, on this, I think, all must agree, that in one of the severest trials which ever tested the moral qualities of man, he fulfilled his duty with simplicity and strength. Nor is it possible for the people of England, at such a moment, to forget that he sprang from the same fatherland, and spoke the same mother tongue.

"When such crimes are perpetrated the public mind is apt to fall into gloom and perplexity; for it is ignorant alike of the causes and the consequences of such deeds. But it is one of our duties to reassure the country under unreasoning panic or despondency. Assassination has never changed the history of the world....

"In expressing our unaffected and profound sympathy with the citizens of the United States at the untimely end of their elected Chief, let us not, therefore, sanction any feeling of depression, but rather let us express a fervent hope that from out the awful trials of the last four years, of which not the least is this violent demise, the various populations of North America may issue elevated and chastened; rich in that accumulated wisdom, and strong in that disciplined energy which a young nation can only acquire in a protracted and perilous struggle. Then they will be enabled not merely to renew their career of power and prosperity, but they will renew it to contribute to the general happiness of mankind. It is with these feelings, Sir, that I second the Address to the Crown[1304]."

Lincoln's assassination served to bring out not only British popular sympathy, but also the certitude that the war was over and the North victorious. But officially the Government had not yet recognized this. Even as early as January, 1865, Seward had returned to the old proposal that the nations of Europe should withdraw their recognition of Southern belligerent rights[1305], and in March he had asked Stoeckl, the Russian Minister, whether Russia would not lead in the suggestion of this measure to England and France[1306]. Meanwhile Sherman's army was rapidly advancing northward and reports were arriving of its pillagings and burnings. March 20, Gregory asked in the Commons whether the Government was taking any steps to prevent the destruction of British property and received from Layard an evasive reply. Merely a "confident hope" had been expressed to the United States that "every facility will be given" to British subjects to prove ownership of property[1307]. Evidently the Government was not eager to raise irritating questions at a moment when all eyes were strained to observe the concluding events of the war.

Then came the news of Lee's surrender and of the assassination of Lincoln, with the attack on Seward, already incapacitated from active duties. Seward's illness delayed American pressure on England—a fortunate circumstance in the relations with Great Britain in that it gave time for a clearer appreciation of the rapidity and completeness of the collapse of the South. May 15, Lord Houghton asked whether the Government did not intend, in view of recent events in America, "to withdraw the admission of belligerent rights conceded to the so-called Confederate States." Russell promptly objected to the form of the question: England had not "conceded" any rights to the South—she had merely issued a proclamation of neutrality after Lincoln had declared the existence of a war by proclaiming a blockade. England had had no other recourse, unless she chose to refuse recognition of the blockade, and this would have drawn her into the war. As to a withdrawal of the neutrality proclamation this must wait upon official announcement from the United States that the war was at an end. Texas was still in arms and Galveston still blockaded, and for this section the United States would no doubt continue to exercise on neutral vessels a belligerent right of search. It followed that if Great Britain did prematurely withdraw her proclamation of neutrality and the United States searched a British vessel, it would be the exercise of a right of search in time of peace—an act against which Great Britain would be bound to make vigorous protest. Hence England must wait on American action proclaiming the end of the war. Russell concluded by expressing gratification at the prospect of peace[1308].

But matters were not to take this orderly and logical course. Seward, though still extremely weak and confined to his home, was eager to resume the duties of office, and on May 9 a Cabinet was held at his house. A week later Bruce wrote to Russell in some anxiety that America was about to demand the withdrawal by Great Britain of belligerent rights to the South, that if Great Britain would but act before such a demand was made it would serve to continue the existing good feeling in America created by the sympathy over Lincoln's death, and especially, that there was a decided danger to good relations in the fact that Confederate cruisers were still at large. He urged that orders should be sent to stop their presence in British colonial ports securing coal and supplies[1309]. Three days later Bruce repeated his warning[1310]. This was, apparently, a complication unforeseen at the Foreign Office. In any case Russell at once made a complete face-about from the policy he had outlined in reply to Lord Houghton. On May 30 he instructed Cowley in Paris to notify France that England thought the time had arrived for recognition that the war was ended and laid special stress upon the question of Confederate cruisers still at sea and their proper treatment in British ports[1311]. Thus having given to France notice of his intention, but without waiting for concurrent action, Russell, on June 2, issued instructions to the Admiralty that the war was ended and stated the lines upon which the Confederate cruisers were to be treated[1312]. Here was prompt, even hurried, action though the only additional event of war in America which Russell could at the moment cite to warrant his change of policy was the capture of Jefferson Davis. On the same day Russell wrote to Bruce stating what had been done and recognizing the "re-establishment of peace within the whole territory of which the United States, before the commencement of the civil war, were in undisturbed possession[1313]."

This sudden shift by the Government did not escape Derby's caustic criticism. June 12, he referred in Parliament to Houghton's previous inquiry and Russell's answer, asking why the Government had not stuck to its earlier position and calling attention to the fact that the United States, while now proclaiming certain ports open to trade, yet specified others as still closed and threatened with punishment as pirates, any vessel attempting to enter them. Derby desired information as to what the Government had done about this remarkable American proclamation. Russell, "who was very imperfectly heard," answered that undoubtedly it was embarrassing that no "regular communication" had been received from America giving notice of the end of the war, but that the two Confederate cruisers still at sea and the entrance of one of them to various Australian ports had compelled some British action. He had consulted Adams, who had no instructions but felt confident the United States would soon formally declare the end of the war. The "piracy proclamation" was certainly a strange proceeding. Derby pushed for an answer as to whether the Government intended to let it go by unnoticed. Russell replied that a despatch from Bruce showed that "notice" had been taken of it. Derby asked whether the papers would be presented to Parliament; Russell "was understood to reply in the affirmative[1314]." Derby's inquiry was plainly merely a hectoring of Russell for his quick shift from the position taken a month earlier. But the very indifference of Russell to this attack, his carelessness and evasion in reply, indicate confidence that Parliament was as eager as the Government to satisfy the North and to avoid friction. The only actual "notice" taken by Bruce at Washington of the "piracy proclamation" was in fact, to report it to Russell, commenting that it was "unintelligible" and probably a mere attempt to frighten foreign ship-owners[1315]. Russell instructed Bruce not to ask for an explanation since Galveston had been captured subsequent to the date of the proclamation and there was presumably no port left where it could be applied[1316].

In truth the actual events of the closing days of the war had outrun diplomatic action by America. Scattered Southern forces still in the field surrendered with an unexpected rapidity, while at Washington all was temporarily in confusion upon the death of Lincoln and the illness of Seward. Bruce's advice had been wise and the prompt action of Russell fortunate. Seward at once accepted Russell's notification of June 2 as ending British neutrality. While again insisting upon the essential injustice of the original concession of belligerent rights to the South, and objecting to some details in the instructions to the Admiralty, he yet admitted that normal relations were again established and acknowledged that the United States could no longer exercise a right of search[1317]. July 4, Russell presented this paper to Parliament, reading that portion in which Seward expressed his pleasure that the United States could now enter again upon normal relations with Great Britain[1318]. Two days later Russell wrote to Bruce that he had not expected Seward to acknowledge the rightfulness of England's neutrality position, pointed out that his Admiralty instructions were misunderstood and were less objectionable than appeared and concluded by the expression of a hope for the "establishment of a lasting and intimate friendship between the two nations[1319]."

* * * * *

Great Britain, wrote the Russian Minister in Washington in January, 1860, was about to experience one of those "strokes of fortune" which occurred but rarely in the history of nations, in the approaching dissolution of the American Union. She alone, of all the nations of the world, would benefit by it in the expansion of her power, hitherto blocked by the might of the United States. Broken into two or more hostile pieces America would be at the mercy of England, to become her plaything. "The Cabinet of London is watching attentively the internal dissensions of the Union and awaits the result with an impatience which it has difficulty in disguising." Great Britain would soon, in return for cotton, give recognition to the South and, if required, armed support. For this same cotton she would oppose emancipation of the slaves. The break-up of the Union was no less than a disaster for all nations save England, since hitherto the "struggle" between England and the United States "has been the best guarantee against the ambitious projects and political egotism of the Anglo-Saxon race[1320]."

This prophecy, made over a year in advance of events, was repeated frequently as the crisis in America approached and during the first two years of the war. Stoeckl was not solitary in such opinion. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs held it also—and the French Emperor puzzled himself in vain to discover why Great Britain, in furtherance of her own interests, did not eagerly accept his overtures for a vigorous joint action in support of the South[1321].

The preceding chapters of this work will have shown how unfounded was such prophecy. Stoeckl was behind the times, knowing nothing, apparently, of that positive change in British policy in the late 'fifties which resulted in a determination to cease opposition to the expansion of American power. Such opposition was then acknowledged to have been an error and in its place there sprang into being a conviction that the might of America would tend toward the greatness of England itself[1322]. In the months preceding the outbreak of the Civil War all British governmental effort was directed toward keeping clear of the quarrel and toward conciliation of the two sections. No doubt there were those in Great Britain who rejoiced at the rupture between North and South, but they were not in office and had no control of British policy.

The war once begun, the Government, anxious to keep clear of it, was prompt in proclaiming neutrality and hastened this step for fear of maritime complications with that one of the belligerents, the North, which alone possessed a naval force. But the British Ministry, like that of every other European state, believed that a revolution for independence when undertaken by a people so numerous and powerful as that of the South, must ultimately succeed. Hence as the war dragged on, the Ministry, pressed from various angles at home, ventured, with much uncertainty, upon a movement looking toward mediation. Its desire was first of all for the restoration of world peace, nor can any other motive be discovered in Russell's manoeuvres. This attempt, fortunately for America and, it may be believed, for the world, was blocked by cool heads within the Ministry itself. There was quick and, as it proved, permanent readjustment of policy to the earlier decision not to meddle in the American crisis.

This very failure to meddle was cause of great complaint by both North and South, each expectant, from divergent reasons, of British sympathy and aid. The very anger of the North at British "cold neutrality" is evidence of how little America, feeling the ties of race and sentiment, could have understood the mistaken view-point of diplomats like Stoeckl, who dwelt in realms of "reasons of state," unaffected by popular emotions. Aside from race, which could be claimed also by the South, the one great argument of the North in appeal to England lay in the cry of anti-slavery. But the leaders of the North denied its pertinence. Itself unsympathetic with the emotions of emancipation societies at home, the British Government settled down by the end of 1862 to a fixed policy of strict neutrality.

In all this the Government but pursued that line which is the business of Governments—the preservation of the prosperity and power of the state. With the unexpected prolongation of the war and the British recognition of the Northern "will to conquer" there came, as is evident from a scrutiny of Russell's diplomatic tone and acts, a growing belief that the North might after all succeed in its purpose, at least of subjugating the South. This would mean the possibility of continuing that policy of friendship for a united America which had been determined upon in the 'fifties. Here was no special sympathy, but merely a cool calculation of benefits to Great Britain, but there can be no question that the general attitude of the Government by midsummer of 1863 was distinctly favourable to a restored Union. A "friendly neutrality" began to replace a "cold neutrality."

But it is the business of Governments not merely to guard national interests and prosperity; they also must guard their own authority and seek to remain in political power. Here emancipation, never greatly stirring the leaders, whether Whig or Tory, exercised an increasing pressure by the force of public approval. It made impossible any attempt to overthrow the Ministry on the score of non-interference in America, or of favouritism toward the North. It gave to an enthusiastic and vociferous section of the British public just ground for strong support of Lincoln and his cause, and in some degree it affected governmental attitude.

There was, however, another question, much more vital than emancipation in its relation to British home politics, that ran like a constant thread through the whole pattern of British public attitude toward America. It had always been so since the days of the American revolution and now was accentuated by the American war. This was the question of the future of democracy. Was its fate bound up with the result of that war? And if so where lay British interest? Always present in the minds of thoughtful Englishmen, appearing again and again through each changing phase of the war, this question was so much a constant that to have attempted discussion of it while other topics were being treated, would have resulted in repetition and confusion. It is therefore made the subject of a separate and concluding chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1261: Bright to Sumner, Jan. 26, 1865 (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XLVI, p. 132).]

[Footnote 1262: To Sumner, Feb. 17, 1865 (Ibid., p. 133).]

[Footnote 1263: Dodd, Jefferson Davis, p. 343]

[Footnote 1264: Mason Papers. Mason to Slidell, March 4, 1865.]

[Footnote 1265: Ibid., Slidell to Mason, March 5 and 6, 1865.]

[Footnote 1266: Ibid., Mason to Slidell, March 15, 1865.]

[Footnote 1267: Mason to Benjamin, March 31, 1865. (Richardson, II, pp. 709-17.)]

[Footnote 1268: Ibid., p. 717.]

[Footnote 1269: Russian Archives. Stoeckl to F.O., Jan. 24, 1865. No. 187. It is interesting that just at this time Gortchakoff should have sent to Stoeckl the copy of a memorandum by one, C. Catacazy, employe of the Foreign Office and long-time resident in the United States, in which was outlined a plan of a Russian offer of mediation. The memorandum specified that such an offer should be based on the idea that the time had come for a complete restoration of the Union and argued that both North and South regarded Russia as a special friend; it was Russia's interest to see the Union restored as a balance to Great Britain. Gortchakoff's comment was favourable, but he left it wholly to Stoeckl's judgment and discretion to act upon the plan. (Russian Archives. F.O. to Stoeckl, Feb. 6, 1865.)]

[Footnote 1270: Feb. 4, 1865.]

[Footnote 1271: A Cycle of Adams' Letters, II, 254. To his son, Feb. 10, 1865.]

[Footnote 1272: Bancroft, Seward, II, pp. 410-14.]

[Footnote 1273: A Cycle of Adams' Letters, II, 256. To his son, Feb. 17, 1865.]

[Footnote 1274: U.S. Messages and Documents, 1865-66, Pt. I, p. 182. Adams to Seward, Feb. 23, 1865.]

[Footnote 1275: Ibid., p. 112. Adams to Seward, Feb. 2, 1865.]

[Footnote 1276: Ibid., p. 180. Seward to Adams, Feb. 21, 1865.]

[Footnote 1277: Ibid., p. 199. Adams to Seward, March 9, 1865.]

[Footnote 1278: Ibid., p. 197. Seward to Adams, March 8, 1865.]

[Footnote 1279: March 8, 1865. (Bigelow, Retrospections, II, p. 361.)]

[Footnote 1280: Russell Papers. Burnley to Russell, Feb. 23 and March 13, 1865.]

[Footnote 1281: "The speech of Mr. Bright is universally admitted to have been one of the most brilliant specimens of his peculiar style of oratory. In its reminiscences, equally unwelcome to both sides of the House, it was yet received after the fashion of an unpleasant medicine, which has the aid of a strong and savoury medium to overwhelm the nauseous taste." (U.S. Messages and Documents, 1865-66, Pt. I, p. 246. Adams to Seward, March 16, 1865.)]

[Footnote 1282: Ibid.]

[Footnote 1283: Ibid., p. 262. Adams to Seward, March 24, 1865. Adams wrote of his own situation that it "seems at last to be getting easy and comfortable, so far as freedom from anxiety is concerned." (A Cycle of Adams' Letters, II, p. 258. To his son, March 24, 1865.)]

[Footnote 1284: Bruce, who succeeded Lyons at Washington, reached New York on April 7. His first letter to Russell from Washington, dated April 14, stated that America was certainly preparing to oust Maximilian in Mexico, and that even the Southern prisoners were eager to join the United States troops in an expedition for this purpose. (Russell Papers.)]

[Footnote 1285: U.S. Messages and Documents, 1865-66, Part II, p. 323. Adams to Seward, April 20, 1865.]

[Footnote 1286: April 24, 1865.]

[Footnote 1287: Ibid.]

[Footnote 1288: Mason Papers. Mason to Slidell, April 23, 1865.]

[Footnote 1289: Ibid., Slidell to Mason, April 26, 1865.]

[Footnote 1290: April 24, 1865.]

[Footnote 1291: U.S. Messages and Documents, 1865-66, Pt. I, p. 331. Adams to Seward, April 28, 1865.]

[Footnote 1292: Bancroft, Seward, II, p. 417.]

[Footnote 1293: Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, April 9, 1861.]

[Footnote 1294: May 6, 1865.]

[Footnote 1295: April 27, 1865.]

[Footnote 1296: April 29, 1865.]

[Footnote 1297: Hansard, 3d. Ser., CLXXVIII, pp. 1073 and 1081.]

[Footnote 1298: Parliamentary Papers, 1865, Commons, Vol. LVII. "Correspondence respecting the Assassination of the late President of the United States."]

[Footnote 1299: Russell Papers. Bruce to Russell, April 18, 1865.]

[Footnote 1300: Ibid., April 24, 1865.]

[Footnote 1301: A Cycle of Adams' Letters, II, 267. Charles Francis Adams to his son, April 28, 1865.]

[Footnote 1302: U.S. Messages and Documents, 1865-66, Pt. I, pp. 344, 361. Adams to Hunter, May 4 and May 11, 1865.]

[Footnote 1303: Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CLXXVIII, p. 1219.]

[Footnote 1304: Ibid., pp. 1242-46.]

[Footnote 1305: Russell Papers. Burnley to Russell, Jan. 16, 1865.]

[Footnote 1306: Russian Archives. Stoeckl to F.O., March 1-13, 1865. No. 523. Stoeckl was opposed to this.]

[Footnote 1307: Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CLXXVII, p. 1922.]

[Footnote 1308: Ibid., CLXXIX, p. 286.]

[Footnote 1309: F.O., Am., Vol. 1018. No. 297. Bruce to Russell, May 16, 1865.]

[Footnote 1310: Ibid., No. 303. Bruce to Russell, May 19, 1865.]

[Footnote 1311: Parliamentary Papers, 1865, Commons, Vol. LVII. "Further Correspondence respecting the Cessation of Civil War in North America." No. 10.]

[Footnote 1312: Ibid., "Correspondence respecting the Cessation of Civil War in North America."]

[Footnote 1313: Ibid., "Further Correspondence respecting the Cessation of Civil War in North America." No. 9.]

[Footnote 1314: Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CLXXX, pp. 1-6.]

[Footnote 1315: Parliamentary Papers, 1865, Commons, Vol. LVII. "Correspondence respecting President's Proclamation of 22nd May, 1865." Bruce to Russell, May 26, 1865.]

[Footnote 1316: Ibid., June 16, 1865.]

[Footnote 1317: Ibid., "Further Correspondence respecting the Cessation of Civil War in North America." No. 9. Seward to Bruce, June 19, 1865.]

[Footnote 1318: Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CLXXX, p. 1143.]

[Footnote 1319: Parliamentary Papers, 1865, Commons, Vol. LVII. "Further Correspondence respecting the Cessation of Civil War in North America." No. 10.]

[Footnote 1320: Russian Archives, Stoeckl to F.O., Dec. 23, 1859/Jan. 4, 1860. No. 146.]

[Footnote 1321: Ibid., Stoeckl to F.O., Jan. 17-29, 1861. No. 267. He reports that he has seen a confidential letter from Thouvenel to Mercier outlining exactly his own ideas as to England being the sole gainer by the dissolution of the Union.]

[Footnote 1322: For an analysis of this change see The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, Vol II, p. 277, which also quotes a remarkable speech by Disraeli.]



CHAPTER XVIII

THE KEY-NOTE OF BRITISH ATTITUDE

On May 8, 1865, the news was received in London of Johnston's surrender to Sherman. On that same day there occurred in the Commons the first serious debate in thirty-three years on a proposed expansion of the electoral franchise. It was a dramatic coincidence and no mere fortuitous one in the minds of thoughtful Englishmen who had seen in the Civil War a struggle as fateful in British domestic policy as in that of America herself. Throughout all British political agitation from the time of the American revolution in 1776, there had run the thread of the American "example" as argument to some for imitation, to others for warning. Nearly every British traveller in America, publishing his impressions, felt compelled to report on American governmental and political institutions, and did so from his preconceived notions of what was desirable in his own country[1323]. In the ten years immediately preceding the Civil War most travellers were laudatory of American democracy, and one, the best in acute analysis up to the time of Lord Bryce's great work, had much influence on that class in England which was discontented with existing political institutions at home. This was Mackay's Western World which, first published in 1849, had gone through four editions in 1850 and in succeeding years was frequently reprinted[1324]. Republicanism, Mackay asserted, was no longer an experiment; its success and permanence were evident in the mighty power of the United States; Canada would soon follow the American example; the "injustice" of British aristocrats to the United States was intentional, seeking to discredit democracy:

"... Englishmen are too prone to mingle severity with their judgments whenever the Republic is concerned. It is the interest of aristocracy to exhibit republicanism, where-ever it is found, in the worst possible light, and the mass of the people have too long, by pandering to their prejudice, aided them in their object. They recognize America as the stronghold of republicanism. If they can bring it into disrepute here, they know that they inflict upon it the deadliest blow in Europe[1325]."

On the opposing side were other writers. Tremenheere argued the inapplicability of American institutions to Great Britain[1326]. The theoretical bases of those institutions were in some respects admirable but in actual practice they had resulted in the rule of the mob and had debased the nation in the estimation of the world; bribery in elections, the low order of men in politics and in Congress, were proofs of the evils of democracy; those in England who clamoured for a "numerical" rather than a class representation should take warning from the American experiment. Occasionally, though rarely, there appeared the impressions of some British traveller who had no political axe to grind[1327], but from 1850 to 1860, as in every previous decade, British writing on America was coloured by the author's attitude on political institutions at home. The "example" of America was constantly on the horizon in British politics.

In 1860, the Liberal movement in England was at its lowest ebb since the high tide of 1832. Palmerston was generally believed to have made a private agreement with Derby that both Whig and Tory parties would oppose any movement toward an expansion of the franchise[1328]. Lord John Russell, in his youth an eager supporter of the Reform Bill of 1832, had now gained the name of "Finality John" by his assertion that that Reform was final in British institutions. Political reaction was in full swing much to the discontent of Radicals like Bright and Cobden and their supporters. When the storm broke in America the personal characteristics of the two leaders North and South, Lincoln and Davis, took on, to many British eyes, an altogether extreme importance as if representative of the political philosophies of the two sections. Lincoln's "crudity" was democratic; Davis' "culture" was aristocratic—nor is it to be denied that Davis had "aristocratic" views on government[1329]. But that this issue had any vital bearing on the quarrel between the American sections was never generally voiced in England. Rather, British comment was directed to the lesson, taught to the world by the American crisis, of the failure of democratic institutions in national power. Bright had long preached to the unenfranchised of England the prosperity and might of America and these had long been denied by the aristocratic faction to be a result of democratic institutions. At first the denial was now repeated, the Saturday Review, February 23, 1861, protesting that there was no essential connection between the "shipwreck" of American institutions and the movement in England for an expanded franchise. Even, the article continued, if an attempt were made to show such a connection it would convince nobody since "Mr. Bright has succeeded in persuading a great number of influential persons that the admission of working-men into the constituencies is chiefly, if not solely, desirable on the ground that it has succeeded admirably in America and has proved a sovereign panacea against the war, taxation and confusion which are the curses of old Governments in Europe." Yet that the denial was not sincere is shown by the further assertion that "the shallow demagogues of Birmingham and other kindred platforms must bear the blame of the inference, drawn nearly universally at the present moment, that, if the United States become involved in hopeless difficulties, it would be madness to lower the qualification for the suffrage in England."

This pretended disclaimer of any essential relation between the American struggle and British institutions was not long persisted in. A month later the Saturday Review was strong in contemptuous criticism of the "promiscuous democracy" of the North[1330]. Less political journals followed suit. The Economist thought the people of England would now be convinced of the folly of aping America and that those who had advocated universal suffrage would be filled with "mingled alarm, gratitude and shame[1331]." Soon W.H. Russell could write, while still at Washington "... the world will only see in it all, the failure of republican institutions in time of pressure as demonstrated by all history—that history which America vainly thought she was going to set right and re-establish on new grounds and principles[1332]." "The English worshippers of American institutions," said the Saturday Review, "are in danger of losing their last pretext for preferring the Republic to the obsolete and tyrannical Monarchy of England.... It now appears that the peaceable completion of the secession has become impossible, and it will be necessary to discover some new ground of superiority by which Mr. Buchanan or Mr. Lincoln may be advantageously contrasted with Queen Victoria[1333]."

These expressions antedated the news of the actual opening of the war and may be regarded as jeers at Bright and his followers rather than as attempts to read a lesson to the public. No such expressions are to be found in the letters of leading officials though minor ones occasionally indulged in them[1334]. As late as June, 1861, Adams declared that while some in England welcomed American disunion as a warning to their countrymen it was evident that but a small number as yet saw the cause of the North as identical with the world progress of free institutions[1335]. Evidently he was disappointed that the followers of Bright were not exhibiting more courage and demanding public support of the North as fighting their battle at home. They were indeed strangely silent, depressed no doubt by American events, and discouraged. It required time also to arouse intensity of feeling on the American question and to see clearly the issues involved. Aristocratic Britain was first to declare a definite lesson to be learned, thereby bringing out the fighting qualities of British democracy. Throughout 1861, the comment was relatively mild. In July, Blackwood's declared:

"It is precisely because we do not share the admiration of America for her own institutions and political tendencies that we do not now see in the impending change an event altogether to be deplored. In those institutions and tendencies we saw what our own might be if the most dangerous elements of our Constitution should become dominant. We saw democracy rampant, with no restriction upon its caprices. We saw a policy which received its impulses always from below ... nor need we affect particularly to lament the exhibition of the weak point of a Constitution ... the disruption of which leaves entirely untouched the laws and usages which America owes to England, and which have contributed so powerfully to her prosperity...."

"With a rival Government on the frontier ... with great principles to be not vapoured about but put to the proof we should probably see the natural aristocracy rise from the dead level of the Republic, raising the national character with its own elevation[1336]."

In the same month the Quarterly, always more calm, logical and convincing than Blackwood's, published "Democracy on its Trial[1337]." "The example of America kept alive, as it had created, the party of progress"; now "it has sunk from the decrepitude of premature old age." If England, after such an example, permits herself to be led into democracy she "will have perished by that wilful infatuation which no warning can dispel."

Adams had complained that few British friends of progress identified the cause of the North with their own, but this was true of Americans also. The Atlantic Monthly for July 1861, discussed British attitude wholly in terms of cotton supply. But soon there appeared in the British press so many preachments on the "lesson" of America that the aristocratic effort to gain an advantage at home became apparent to all[1338]. The Economist moralized on the "untried" character of American institutions and statesmen, the latter usually as ignorant as the "masses" whom they represented and if more intellectual still more worthy of contempt because of their "voluntary moral degradation" to the level of their constituents[1339]. "The upper and ruling class" wrote Bright to Sumner, were observing with satisfaction, "that democracy may get into trouble, and war, and debt, and taxes, as aristocracy has done for this country[1340]." Thus Bright could not deny the blow to democracy; nor could the Spectator, upbraiding its countrymen for lack of sympathy with the North: "New England will be justified in saying that Old England's anti-slavery sympathies are mere hollow sentimental pretences, since she can rest satisfied to stuff her ears with cotton against the cries of the slaves, and to compensate her gentle regret over the new impulse given to slavery by her lively gratification over the paralyzing shock suffered by Democracy[1341]." This was no taking up of cudgels for the North and "Progress" such as Adams had hoped for. Vigour rested with the opposing side and increased when hopes of a short war vanished. The Saturday Review asserted:

"In that reconstruction of political philosophy which the American calamities are likely to inaugurate, the value of the popular element will be reduced to its due proportions.... The true guarantee of freedom will be looked for more in the equilibrium of classes than in the equality of individuals.... We may hope, at last, that the delusive confusion between freedom and democracy is finally banished from the minds of Englishmen[1342]."

"The real secret," wrote Motley, "of the exultation which manifests itself in the Times and other organs over our troubles and disasters, is their hatred, not to America, so much as to democracy in England[1343]." It was scarcely a secret in the columns of the journals already quoted. But no similar interpretation had as yet appeared in the Times and Motley's implication was justified for it and other leading daily newspapers. The Reviews and Weeklies were for the moment leading the attack—possibly one reason for the slowness in reply of Bright and his followers. Not all Reviews joined in the usual analysis. The Edinburgh at first saw in slavery the sole cause of the American dispute[1344], then attributed it to the inevitable failure in power of a federal system of government, not mentioning democracy as in question[1345]. Blackwood's repeatedly pushed home its argument:

"Independent of motives of humanity, we are glad that the end of the Union seems more likely to be ridiculous than terrible.... But for our own benefit and the instruction of the world we wish to see the faults, so specious and so fatal, of their political system exposed, in the most effective way.... And the venerable Lincoln, the respectable Seward, the raving editors, the gibbering mob, and the swift-footed warriors of Bull's Run, are no malicious tricks of fortune played off on an unwary nation, but are all of them the legitimate offspring of the great Republic ... dandled and nursed—one might say coddled—by Fortune, the spoiled child Democracy, after playing strange pranks before high heaven, and figuring in odd and unexpected disguises, dies as sheerly from lack of vitality as the oldest of worn-out despotisms.... In the hope that this contest may end in the extinction of mob rule, we become reconciled to the much slighter amount of suffering that war inflicts on America[1346]."

Equally outspoken were a few public men who early espoused the cause of the South. Beresford Hope, before a "distinguished audience" used language insulting to the North, fawning upon the South and picturing the latter as wholly admirable for its aristocratic tendencies. For this he was sharply taken to task by the Spectator[1347]. More sedately the Earl of Shrewsbury proclaimed, "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[1348]." In all countries and at all times there are men over-eager in early prophecy on current events, but in such utterances as these there is manifest not merely the customary desire to stand in the limelight of assured knowledge and wisdom, but also the happy conviction that events in America were working to the undoing of the Radicals of Great Britain. If they would not be supine the Radicals must strike back. On December 4, at Rochdale where, as the Times asserted, he was sure of an audience sympathetic on purely personal grounds, Bright renewed his profession of faith in the American Republic and sang his accustomed praises of its great accomplishments[1349]. The battle, for England, on American democracy, was joined; the challenge issued by aristocratic England, accepted.

But apart from extreme factions at either end of the scale there stood a group holding a middle ground opinion, not yet sure of the historical significance of the American collapse. To this group belonged Gladstone, as yet uncertain of his political philosophy, and regretful, though vainly, it would appear, of the blow to democracy. He wrote his thought to Brougham, no doubt hoping to influence the view-point of the Edinburgh.

"This has without doubt been a deplorable year for poor 'Democracy' and never has the old woman been at a heavier discount since 1793. I see no discredit to the founders of the American constitution in the main fact of the rupture. On the contrary it was a great achievement to strike off by the will and wit of man a constitution for two millions of men scattered along a seaboard, which has lasted until they have become more than thirty millions and have covered a whole continent. But the freaks, pranks, and follies, not to say worse, with which the rupture has been met in the Northern States, down to Mr. Chase's financial (not exposition but) exposure have really given as I have said the old lady in question such a heavy blow and great discouragement that I hope you will in the first vigour of your action be a little merciful and human lest you murder her outright[1350]."

On this middle group of Englishmen and their moral conceptions the American Minister, Adams, at first pinned his faith, not believing in 1861 that the issues of democracy or of trade advantage would lead Great Britain from just rules of conduct. Even in the crisis of the Trent affair he was firm in this opinion:

"Much as the commercial and manufacturing interests may be disposed to view the tariff as the source of all our evils, and much as the aristocratic classes may endeavour to make democracy responsible for them, the inexorable logic of events is contradicting each and every assertion based on these notions, and proving that the American struggle is, after all, the ever-recurring one in human affairs between right and wrong, between labour and capital, between liberty and absolutism. When such an issue comes to be presented to the people of Great Britain, stripped of all the disguises which have been thrown over it, it is not difficult to predict at least which side it will not consent to take[1351].

April, 1861, saw the beginning of the aristocratic challenge on American democracy and December its acceptance by Bright. Throughout 1862 he practically deserted his seat in Parliament and devoted himself to stirring up labour and radical sentiment in favour of the North. In January, 1862, a mass meeting at New Hall, Edgware Road, denounced the daily press and was thought of sufficient moment to be reported by Adams. A motion was carried:

"That in the opinion of this meeting, considering the ill-disguised efforts of the Times and other misleading journals to misrepresent public opinion here on all American questions ... to decry democratic institutions under the trials to which the Republic is exposed, it is the duty of the working-men especially as unrepresented in the National Senate to express their sympathy with the United States in their gigantic struggle for the preservation of the Union[1352]...."

The daily press was, in fact, now joining more openly in the controversy. The Morning Post, stating with conviction its belief that there could be no re-union in America, added:

"... if the Government of the United States should succeed in reannexing them [the Southern States] to its still extensive dominions, Democracy will have achieved its grandest triumph since the world began. It will have demonstrated to the ample satisfaction of its present and future proselytes that it is even more puissant in war than in peace; that it can navigate not only the smooth seas of unendangered prosperity, but can ride safely through the fiercest tempests that would engulf every other craft laden with human destinies; that it can descend to the darkest depths of adversity, and rise from them all the stronger for the descent.... And who can doubt that Democracy will be more arrogant, more aggressive, more levelling and vulgarizing, if that be possible, than it ever had been before[1353]."

By midsummer, 1862, Adams was more convinced than in 1861 that the political controversy in England had an important bearing on the attitude toward America. Even the alleged neutrality of Fraser's Magazine seemed turning to one-sided presentation of the "lesson" of America. Mill's defence of the North, appearing in the February number, was soon followed in July by the first of a series of articles, "Universal Suffrage in the United States and Its Consequences," depicting the war as the result of mob rule and predicting a military despotism as its inevitable consequence. The Liberals were losing strength, wrote Adams:

"That the American difficulties have materially contributed to this result cannot be doubted. The fact that many of the leading Liberals are the declared friends of the United States is a decided disadvantage in the contest now going on. The predominating passion here is the desire for the ultimate subdivision of America into many separate States which will neutralize each other. This is most visible among the conservative class of the Aristocracy who dread the growth of liberal opinions and who habitually regard America as the nursery of them[1354]."

From all this controversy Government leaders kept carefully aloof at least in public expression of opinion. Privately, Russell commented to Palmerston, "I have been reading a book on Jefferson by De Witt, which is both interesting and instructive. It shows how the Great Republic of Washington degenerated into the Democracy of Jefferson. They are now reaping the fruit[1355]." Was it mere coincidence or was there significance in an editorial in Palmerston's alleged "organ," the Morning Post:

"That any Englishman has looked forward with pleasure to the calamities of America is notoriously and demonstrably false. But we have no hesitation in admitting that many thoughtful Englishmen who have watched, in the policy of the United States during the last twenty years, the foreshadowing of a democratic tyranny compared with which the most corrupt despotisms of the Old World appear realms of idyllic happiness and peace, have gratefully recognized the finger of Providence in the strife by which they have been so frightfully rent asunder[1356]...."

In October the heavy artillery of the Conservatives was again brought into action and this time with more explicit diagnosis than heretofore. "For a great number of years," said the Quarterly, "a certain party among us, great admirers of America ... have chosen to fight their English battles upon American soil." Now the American Government "has disgracefully and ignominiously failed" at all points. It is evident that "political equality is not merely a folly, it is a chimera[1357]." At last, in November, the Times openly took the position which its accusers declared to have been the basis of its editorial utterances almost from the beginning of the Civil War.

"These are the consequences of a cheap and simple form of government, having a rural attorney for Sovereign and a city attorney for Prime Minister. We have already said that if such a terrible exposure of incapacity had happened in England we should at the earliest moment possible have sent the incapables about their business, and put ourselves in the hands of better men...."

"This Republic has been so often proposed to us as a model for imitation that we should be unpardonable not to mark how it works now, when for the first time it has some work to do. We believe that if the English system of Parliamentary action had existed in America, the war could not have occurred, but we are quite sure that such Ministers would have long since been changed[1358]."

In addition to a Conservative ringing the changes upon the failure of democracy, the open friends of the South dilated also upon the "gentlemanly" characteristics of Southern leaders and society. This was the frequent burden of articles in The Index in the early weeks of its publication. To this was soon added a picture of Northern democracy as composed of and controlled by the "immigrant element" which was the source of "the enormous increase of population in the last thirty years" from revolutionary areas in Europe. "Germans, Hungarians, Irish carried with them more than their strong arms, they imported also their theories of equality.... The revolutionary party which represents them is at this moment master in the States of the North, where it is indulging in all its customary licence[1359]." This fact, complained The Index, was not sufficiently brought out in the English press. Very different was the picture painted by Anthony Trollope after a tour of the Western states:

"... this man has his romance, his high poetic feeling, and above all his manly dignity. Visit him, and you will find him without coat or waistcoat, unshorn, in ragged blue trousers and old flannel shirt, too often bearing on his lantern jaws the signs of ague and sickness; but he will stand upright before you and speak to you with all the ease of a lettered gentleman in his own library. All the odious incivility of the republican servant has been banished. He is his own master, standing on his own threshold, and finds no need to assert his equality by rudeness. He is delighted to see you, and bids you sit down on his battered bench, without dreaming of any such apology as an English cotter offers to a Lady Bountiful when she calls. He has worked out his independence, and shows it in every easy movement of his body. He tells you of it unconsciously in every tone of his voice. You will always find in his cabin some newspaper, some book, some token of advance in education. When he questions you about the old country he astonishes you by the extent of his knowledge. I defy you not to feel that he is superior to the race from whence he has sprung in England or in Ireland."

* * * * *

"It is always the same story. With us there is no level of society. Men stand on a long staircase, but the crowd congregates near the bottom, and the lower steps are very broad. In America men stand upon a common platform, but the platform is raised above the ground, though it does not approach in height the top of our staircase. If we take the average altitude in the two countries, we shall find that the American heads are the more elevated of the two[1360]."

A comparison of dates shows that the unanimity of conservative and aristocratic expression on the failure of American democracy and its lesson to England was most marked and most open at the moment when the Government was seriously considering an offer of mediation in the war. Meanwhile the emancipation proclamation of September, 1862, had appeared. It did not immediately affect governmental attitude, save adversely to the North, and it gave a handle for pro-Southern outcry on the score of a "servile war." Indeed, the radicals were at first depressed by it; but when months passed with no appearance of a servile war and when the second emancipation proclamation of January, 1863, further certified the moral purpose of the North, a great element of strength was added to the English advocates of democracy. The numerous "addresses" to Lincoln exhibited both a revived moral enthusiasm for the cause of anti-slavery and were frequently combined with a laudation of American political institutions. The great mass-meeting at Exeter Hall, January 29, 1863, was described by the correspondent of an American paper as largely deriving its strength from the universal dissatisfaction of the lower orders of the English people with their existing conditions under the Crown:

"The descendants of the Roundhead commoners, chafing under the limitations of the franchise, burdensome taxation, the contempt with which they are regarded by the lords of the soil, the grievous effects of the laws of entail and primogeniture, whereby they are kept poor and rendered liable to starvation and pauperism—these have looked to America as the model democracy which proves the poor man's capacity for self-government." The meeting was called for seven o'clock but at half after five the hall was filled, and at six crowded. A second hall was filled and outdoor meetings of two thousand people organized in Exeter Street. "All working-class England was up in arms, not so much against slavery as against British oligarchy[1361]."

The correspondent further reported rumours that this meeting had caused anxious consideration to the managers of the Times, and the decision to step more warily. No doubt this was exaggeration of the political character and effect of the meeting, but certain it is that the political element was present joining hands with anti-slavery enthusiasm. Also it is noteworthy that the last confident and vigorous expression of the "failure" of democracy, from sources professedly neutral, appeared immediately after the St. James' Hall meeting, but was necessarily written before that meeting took place. Blackwood's, in its issue of February, 1863, declared, as before: "Every sensible man in this country now acknowledges ... that we have already gone as far toward democracy as is safe to go.... This is the great moral benefit which we have derived from the events in America." John Blackwood was an intimate friend of Delane, editor of the Times, holding similar views on political questions; but the Times was suddenly grown cautious in reading English political lessons from America. In truth, attack now rested with the Radicals and Bright's oratory was in great demand[1362]. He now advanced from the defensive position of laudation of the North to the offensive one of attacking the Southern aristocracy, not merely because it wished to perpetuate African slavery, but because it desired to make all the working-classes as subservient to it as was the negro[1363]. It was now Radical purpose to keep the battle raging and they were succeeding. Bigelow believed that the United States might well recognize its opportunity in this controversy and give aid to its friends:

"After all, this struggle of ours both at home and abroad is but a struggle between the principle of popular government and government by a privileged class. The people therefore all the world over are in a species of solidarity which it is our duty and interest to cultivate to the utmost[1364]."

But Adams gave contrary advice. Wholly sympathetic with the democratic movement in England as now, somewhat to his surprise, developed, he yet feared that the extremes to which Bright and others were going in support of the North might create unfortunate reactions in the Government. Especially he was anxious that the United States should not offer opportunity for accusation of interference in a British political quarrel. It is noteworthy that while many addresses to Lincoln were forwarded by him and many were printed in the annual publication of diplomatic correspondence, those that thus appeared dealt almost exclusively with emancipation. Yet Adams was also forwarding addresses and speeches harping on American democracy. A meeting at Edinburgh, February 19, found place, in its emancipation aspect in the United States documents[1365], but the burden of that meeting, democracy, did not. It was there proclaimed that the British press misrepresented conditions in America, "because the future of free political institutions, as sketched in the American Declaration of Independence and in the State Constitutions of the Northern States, would be a standing argument against the expansion of the franchise and the enjoyment of just political rights among us, as well as a convenient argument in favour of the continued domination of our aristocratic parties[1366]." The tide of democratic feeling was rising rapidly in England. On March 26, Adams wrote to Seward of a recent debate in Parliament that that body was much more judicious in expressions on America than it had been before 1862. "It will not escape your observation that the question is now felt to be taking a shape which was scarcely anticipated by the managers [of the Times] when they first undertook to guide the British mind to the overthrow of free institutions in America[1367]."

On the evening of the day on which this was written there occurred the greatest, most outspoken, and most denunciatory to the aristocracy, of the meetings held to support the cause of the North. This was the spectacular gathering of the Trades Unions of London at St. James' Hall, on March 26, usually regarded as the culminating effort in Bright's tour of England for the cause of democracy, but whose origin is somewhat shrouded in mystery. Socialist tradition claims that Karl Marx conceived the idea of the meeting and was responsible for its organization[1368]. The press generally reported it as a "Bright Meeting." Adams wrote to Seward of the pressure put on him by Professor Beesly, of the University of London, to send a representative from the American Ministry, Beesly expanding upon the importance and high standing of the Trades Unions. To this Adams demurred but finally sent his son to sit in the audience and report the proceedings.

Whatever its origin there can be no doubt that this was the most important of all pro-Northern meetings held in England during the Civil War, nor that its keynote was "America fighting the battle of democracy." Save for some distinguished speakers those in attendance consisted almost wholly of three thousand picked representatives of the Trades Unions of London. Adams transmitted to Seward his son's report of the meeting, its character, composition, names of speakers and their emphatic expressions of friendship for the North[1369], but it is again noteworthy that Henry Adams' clear analysis of the real significance of the meeting was not printed in the published diplomatic correspondence. Giving due praise to the speeches of Bright and Beesly, and commenting on press assertions that "the extraordinary numbers there were only brought together by their curiosity to hear Mr. Bright," Henry Adams continued: "That this was not the case must have been evident to every person present. In fact, it was only after he closed that the real business of the evening began." Then followed speeches and the introduction of resolutions by "Mr. Howell, a bricklayer ... Mr. Odgers, a shoemaker ... Mr. Mantz, a compositor ... Mr. Cremer, a joiner, who was bitter against Lord Palmerston ... Mr. Conolly, a mason...." and other labouring men, all asserting "that the success of free institutions in America was a political question of deep consequence in England and that they would not tolerate any interference unfavourable to the North." No one, the report emphasized, "could doubt what was intended."

"The meeting was a demonstration of democratic strength and no concealment of this fact was made. If it did not have a direct political bearing on internal politics in England it needed little of doing so. There was not even a profession of faith in the government of England as at present constituted. Every hostile allusion to the Aristocracy, the Church, the opinions of the 'privileged classes,' was received with warm cheers. Every allusion to the republican institutions of America, the right of suffrage, the right of self-taxation, the 'sunlight' of republican influence, was caught up by the audience with vehement applause. It may therefore be considered as fairly and authoritatively announced that the class of skilled workmen in London—that is the leaders of the pure popular movement in England—have announced by an act almost without precedent in their history, the principle that they make common cause with the Americans who are struggling for the restoration of the Union and that all their power and influence shall be used on behalf of the North[1370]."

Bright's words of most scarifying indictment of "Privilege," and his appeal to workers to join hands with their fellows in America have been given in a previous chapter[1371]. Evidently that appeal, though enthusiastically received for its oratorical brilliance, was unneeded. His was but an eloquent expression of that which was in the minds of his audience. Upon the American Minister the effect was to cause him to renew warnings against showing too keen an appreciation of the support of political radicalism in England. The meeting, he wrote, had at once stirred anxiety in Parliament and verged:

"... much too closely upon the minatory in the domestic politics of this Kingdom to make it easy to recognize or sympathize with by Foreign Governments.... Hence it seems to me of the greatest consequence that the treatment of all present questions between the two nations should be regulated by a provident forecast of what may follow it [the political struggle in England] hereafter. I am not sure that some parties here would not now be willing even to take the risk of a war in order the more effectually to turn the scale against us, and thus, as they think, to crush the rising spirit of their own population. That this is only a feeling at present and has not yet risen to the dignity of a policy may be true enough; but that does not the less impose upon the Government at home a duty so to shape its actions as, if possible, to defeat all such calculations and dissipate such hopes.... We owe this duty not less to the great body of those who in this kingdom are friends to us and our institutions, than to ourselves[1372]."



Thus Adams advised his Government to tread lightly in respect to democratic agitation in England. Over a month later he received a deputation headed by Bright, come to present to him the resolutions passed at the Trades Unions' meeting. The deputation expressed fears that a rupture was imminent in the relations of Great Britain and America, and that this would have a disastrous influence on the aspirations of working-class Europe. Adams replied in general terms of appreciation for the sympathies expressed by the meeting but carefully avoided specific comment on its democratic purpose. "He was too prudent," said the Times in reporting the deputation, "to appraise the importance of the particular demonstration to which his notice was invited ..." and his reply was given favourable comment[1373]. This reply, wrote Adams, "appears to have had a sedative effect[1374]." Meanwhile, Bright continued his preachment to the English people though modifying his tone of fierce accusation against "privilege," and confining himself to declaring the interest of the unenfranchised in the American conflict. In a speech before the Union and Emancipation Society of London, on June 16, he asserted for the "twenty millions of people in this country" as yet without representation in Parliament, "I say that these have an interest, almost as great and direct as though they were living in Massachusetts or New York, in the tremendous struggle for freedom which is now shaking the whole North American Continent[1375]." Like utterances were repeated at further public meetings and so insistent were they as to require reply by the conservative faction, even if, as was supposed, the effect of the Trades' Union attitude had been to give a halt to the vehemence of those who had been sounding the "lesson" of American failure in democracy. Bright became the centre of attack. The Times led.

"His is a political fanaticism. He used to idolize the Constitution of the United States as the one great dominant Democracy of the world. He believes in it still, and, if it must go, he is ready to idolize its memory. For this he gives up all his most cherished notions and all his less absorbing principles...."

"Yet Mr. Bright is consistent. He has one master passion and his breast, capacious as it is, can hold no more. That master passion is the love of that great dominant Democracy. He worshipped it while rising to its culminating point, and he is obliged to turn right round to worship it while setting. He did not himself know, until tested by this great trial, how entirely his opinions as to war and peace, and slavery and freedom, and lust of conquest and hatred of oppression, were all the mere accidents which hung loosely upon him, and were capable of being detached at once in the interest of the ruling passion of his soul for that great dominant Democracy. Nor need we wonder; for if that great Democracy has been a failure, then men will say that the life of Mr. John Bright up to this time has been but a foolish dream[1376]."

Evidently Bright's speeches were causing anxiety and bitterness; but an "if" had crept into the estimate of the future of American democracy, caused less by the progress of the war than by the rising excitement of democratic England. The Times editorial just quoted appeared when the faith was generally professed that Lee was about to end the war through the invasion of Pennsylvania. In the reaction created by the arrival of the news of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Adams still again warned his Government against either a belligerent or interfering attitude toward Great Britain, but stated plainly that Northern victory was of supreme importance in Europe itself. "We have a mission to fulfill. It is to show, by our example to the people of England in particular, and to all nations in general, the value of republican institutions." There was still a general belief in the incompetency of those institutions. "The greatest triumph of all would be to prove these calculations vain. In comparison with this, what would be the gain to be derived from any collision with the powers of Europe[1377]?"

It is strange that with so clearly-expressed a division of English opinion on American democracy few in America itself appreciated the significance of the British controversy. J. M. Forbes, who had been on a special mission to England, wrote to Lincoln, on his return[1378]:

"Our friends abroad see it! John Bright and his glorious band of English Republicans see that we are fighting for Democracy or (to get rid of the technical name) for liberal institutions; the Democrats and the liberals of the old world are as much and as heartily with us as any supporters we have on this side.

Our enemies too see it in the same light; the Aristocrats and the Despots of the old world see that our quarrel is that of the People against an Aristocracy[1379]."

But there are few similar expressions and these few nearly always came from men who had been abroad and had thus come into direct contact with British political movements. Meanwhile, Lee's retreat from Pennsylvania had produced a like retreat in the opinions on the failure of democracy earlier confidently held by the professedly neutral press. In September, having arrived at the point by the usual process of gradually facing about, the Times was bold enough to deny that England had any personal feeling or concern about democracy in America or that this had anything to do with English attitude on the war[1380]. Thenceforth neither the Times nor any of the leading papers saw fit to revive with vigour the cry of "democracy's failure," no matter how persistent in proclaiming ultimate victory for the South. Aristocratic exultation had given place to alarm and it seemed wiser, if possible, to quiet the issue[1381]. Not so the Radicals, who made every effort to keep the issue alive in the minds of the British public, and whose leaders with less violence but increased firmness debated the question in every public meeting favourable to the North[1382]. Many Conservatives, Adams reported, were now anxiously sitting on the fence yet finding the posture a difficult one because of their irritation at Bright's taunts[1383]. Bright's star was rising. "The very moment the war comes to an end," wrote Adams, "and a restoration of the Union follows, it will be the signal for a reaction that will make Mr. Bright perhaps the most formidable public man in England[1384]."