Part 2 (1/2)
[Footnote 11: John Melish, _Travels_, Vol. I, p. 148.]
[Footnote 12: Morris Birkbeck, _Letters from Illinois_, London, 1818, p.
29.]
[Footnote 13: Letter in Edinburgh _Scotsman_, March, 1823. Cited by _Niles Register_, Vol. XXV, p. 39.]
[Footnote 14: _Travels in North America_, 1827-28, London, 1829.]
[Footnote 15: Captain Thomas Hamilton, _Men and Manners in America_, Edinburgh and London, 1833. 2 vols.]
[Footnote 16: _Society in America_, London, 1837. 3 vols. _Retrospect of Western Travel_, London, 1838. 2 vols.]
[Footnote 17: Captain Frederick Marryat, _A Diary in America, with Remarks on Its Inst.i.tutions_, Vol. VI, p. 293.]
[Footnote 18: James Silk Buckingham, _America, Historical, Statistic and Descriptive_, London, 1841-43. 9 vols.]
[Footnote 19: _Notes on the United States of North America during a phrenological visit_, 1838-9-40, Edinburgh, 1841. 3 vols.]
[Footnote 20: _A Visit to the United States in 1841_, London, 1842.]
[Footnote 21: George William Featherstonaugh, _Excursion through the Slave States_, London, 1844. 2 vols.]
[Footnote 22: William Kennedy, _Texas: The Rise, Progress and Prospects of the Republic of Texas_, London, 1841. 2 vols. George Warburton, _Hochelaga: or, England in the New World_, London, 1845. 2 vols.]
[Footnote 23: Warburton, _Hochelaga_, 5th Edition, Vol. II, pp. 363-4.]
[Footnote 24: Alexander Mackay, _The Western World: or, Travels through the United States in 1846-47_, London, 1849.]
[Footnote 25: This is clearly indicated in Parliament itself, in the debate on the dismissal by the United States in 1856 of Crampton, the British Minister at Was.h.i.+ngton, for enlistment activities during the Crimean War.--_Hansard_, 3rd. Ser., CXLIII, 14-109 and 120-203.]
[Footnote 26: Gladstone's letters were later published in book form, under the t.i.tle _The Englishman in Kansas_, London, 1857.]
[Footnote 27: ”The evil pa.s.sions which 'Uncle Tom' gratified in England were not hatred or vengeance [of slavery], but national jealousy and national vanity. We have long been smarting under the conceit of America--we are tired of hearing her boast that she is the freest and the most enlightened country that the world has ever seen. Our clergy hate her voluntary system--our Tories hate her democrats--our Whigs hate her parvenus--our Radicals hate her litigiousness, her insolence, and her ambition. All parties hailed Mrs. Stowe as a revolter from the enemy.” Senior, _American Slavery_, p. 38.]
[Footnote 28: The reprint is without date, but the context shows the year to be 1857.]
[Footnote 29: For example the many British expressions quoted in reference to John Brown's raid, in _The Liberator_ for February 10, 1860, and in succeeding issues.]
[Footnote 30: Senior, _American Slavery_, p. 68.]
CHAPTER II
FIRST KNOWLEDGE OF IMPENDING CONFLICT, 1860-61.
It has been remarked by the American historian, Schouler, that immediately before the outbreak of the Civil War, diplomatic controversies between England and America had largely been settled, and that England, pressed from point to point, had ”sullenly” yielded under American demands. This generalization, as applied to what were, after all, minor controversies, is in great measure true. In larger questions of policy, as regards spheres of influence or developing power, or principles of trade, there was difference, but no longer any essential opposition or declared rivalry[31]. In theories of government there was sharp divergence, clearly appreciated, however, only in governing-cla.s.s Britain. This sense of divergence, even of a certain threat from America to British political inst.i.tutions, united with an established opinion that slavery was permanently fixed in the United States to reinforce governmental indifference, sometimes even hostility, to America. The British public, also, was largely hopeless of any change in the inst.i.tution of slavery, and its own active humanitarian interest was waning, though still dormant--not dead. Yet the two nations, to a degree not true of any other two world-powers, were of the same race, had similar basic laws, read the same books, and were held in close touch at many points by the steady flow of British emigration to the United States.
When, after the election of Lincoln to the Presidency, in November, 1860, the storm-clouds of civil strife rapidly gathered, the situation took both British Government and people by surprise. There was not any clear understanding either of American political conditions, or of the intensity of feeling now aroused over the question of the extension of slave territory. The most recent descriptions of America had agreed in a.s.sertion that at some future time there would take place, in all probability, a dissolution of the Union, on lines of diverging economic interests, but also stated that there was nothing in the American situation to indicate immediate progress in this direction. Grattan, a long-time resident in America as British Consul at Boston, wrote:
”The day must no doubt come when clas.h.i.+ng objects will break the ties of common interest which now preserve the Union. But no man may foretell the period of dissolution.... The many restraining causes are out of sight of foreign observation.
The Lilliputian threads binding the man mountain are invisible; and it seems wondrous that each limb does not act for itself independently of its fellows. A closer examination shows the nature of the network which keeps the members of this a.s.sociation so tightly bound. Any attempt to untangle the ties, more firmly fastens them. When any one State talks of separation, the others become spontaneously knotted together. When a section bl.u.s.ters about its particular rights, the rest feel each of theirs to be common to all. If a foreign nation hint at hostility, the whole Union becomes in reality united. And thus in every contingency from which there can be danger, there is also found the element of safety.” Yet, he added, ”All attempts to strengthen this federal government at the expense of the States' governments must be futile.... The federal government exists on sufferance only. Any State may at any time const.i.tutionally withdraw from the Union, and thus virtually dissolve it[32].”