Part 2 (2/2)
Even more emphatically, though with less authority, wrote one Charles Mackay, styled by the American press as a ”distinguished British poet,”
who made the usual rapid tour of the princ.i.p.al cities of America in 1857-58, and as rapidly penned his impressions:
”Many persons in the United States talk of a dissolution of the Union, but few believe in it.... All this is mere bravado and empty talk. It means nothing. The Union is dear to all Americans, whatever they may say to the contrary.... There is no present danger to the Union, and the violent expressions to which over-ardent politicians of the North and South sometimes give vent have no real meaning. The 'Great West,'
as it is fondly called, is in the position even now to arbitrate between North and South, should the quarrel stretch beyond words, or should anti-slavery or any other question succeed in throwing any difference between them which it would take revolvers and rifles rather than speeches and votes to put an end to[33].”
The slavery controversy in America had, in short, come to be regarded in England as a constant quarrel between North and South, but of no immediate danger to the Union. Each outbreak of violent American controversy produced a British comment sympathetic with the North. The turmoil preceding and following the election of Lincoln in 1860, on the platform of ”no extension of slavery,” was very generally noted by the British press and public, as a sign favourable to the cause of anti-slavery, but with no understanding that Southern threat would at last be realized in definite action. Herbert Spencer, in a letter of May 15, 1862, to his American friend, Yeomans, wrote, ”As far as I had the means of judging, the feeling here was at first _very decidedly_ on the side of the North[34] ...” The British metropolitan press, in nearly every issue of which for at least two years after December, 1860, there appeared news items and editorial comment on the American crisis, was at first nearly unanimous in condemning the South[35]. The _Times_, with accustomed vigour, led the field. On November 21, 1860, it stated:
”When we read the speech of Mr. Lincoln on the subject of Slavery and consider the extreme moderation of the sentiments it expresses, the allowance that is made for the situation, for the feelings, for the prejudices, of the South; when we see how entirely he narrows his opposition to the single point of the admission of Slavery into the Territories, we cannot help being forcibly struck by the absurdity of breaking up a vast and glorious confederacy like that of the United States from the dread and anger inspired by the election of such a man to the office of Chief Magistrate....
We rejoice, on higher and surer grounds, that it [the election] has ended in the return of Mr. Lincoln. We are glad to think that the march of Slavery, and the domineering tone which its advocates were beginning to a.s.sume over Freedom, has been at length arrested and silenced. We rejoice that a vast community of our own race has at length given an authoritative expression to sentiments which are entertained by everyone in this country. We trust to see the American Government employed in tasks more worthy of a State founded on the doctrines of liberty and equality than the invention of s.h.i.+fts and devices to perpetuate servitude; and we hear in this great protest of American freedom the tardy echo of those humane doctrines to which England has so long become a convert.”
Other leading journals, though with less of patronizing self-complacency, struck the same note as the _Times_. The _Economist_ attributed Lincoln's election to a s.h.i.+ft in the sympathies of the ”lower orders” in the electorate who had now deserted their former leaders, the slave-owning aristocracy of the South, and allied themselves with the refined and wise leaders of the North. Lincoln, it argued, was not an extremist in any sense. His plan of action lay within the limits of statesmanlike moderation[36]. The _Sat.u.r.day Review_ was less sure that England should rejoice with the North. British self-esteem had suffered some hard blows at the hands of the Democratic party in America, but at least England knew where Democrats stood, and could count on no more discourtesy or injustice than that inflicted in the past. The Republican party, however, had no policy, except that of its leader, Seward, and from him might be expected extreme insolence[37]. This was a very early judgment of Seward, and one upon which the _Sat.u.r.day Review_ preened itself later, as wholly justified. The _Spectator_, the only one of the four journals thus far considered which ultimately remained constant in advocacy of the Northern cause, was at first lukewarm in comment, regarding the 1860 election, while fought on the slavery issue, as in reality a mere contest between parties for political power[38].
Such was the initial att.i.tude of the English press. Each press issue for several weeks harped on the same chord, though sounding varying notes. If the South really means forcible resistance, said the _Times_, it is doomed to quick suppression. ”A few hundred thousand slave-owners, trembling nightly with visions of murder and pillage, backed by a dissolute population of 'poor whites,' are no match for the hardy and resolute populations of the Free States[39],” and if the South hoped for foreign aid it should be undeceived promptly: ”Can any sane man believe that England and France will consent, as is now suggested, to stultify the policy of half a century for the sake of an extended cotton trade, and to purchase the favours of Charleston and Milledgeville by recognizing what has been called 'the isothermal law, which impels African labour toward the tropics' on the other side of the Atlantic[40]?” Moreover all Americans ought to understand clearly that British respect for the United States ”was not due to the att.i.tude of the South with its ruffian demonstrations in Congress.... All that is n.o.ble and venerable in the United States is a.s.sociated with its Federal Const.i.tution[41].”
Did the British public hold these same opinions? There is no direct evidence available in sufficient quant.i.ty in autobiography or letters upon which to base a conclusion. Such works are silent on the struggle in America for the first few months and presumably public opinion, less informed even than the press, received its impressions from the journals customarily read. Both at this period and all through the war, also, it should be remembered, clearly, that most newspapers, all the reviews, in fact nearly all vehicles of British expression, were in the early 'sixties ”in the hands of the educated cla.s.ses, and these educated cla.s.ses corresponded closely with the privileged cla.s.ses.” The more democratic element of British Society lacked any adequate press representation of its opinions. ”This body could express itself by such comparatively crude methods as public meetings and demonstrations, but it was hampered in literary and political expression[42].” The opinion of the press was then, presumably, the opinion of the majority of the educated British public.
Thus British comment on America took the form, at first of moralizations, now severe toward the South, now indifferent, yet very generally a.s.serting the essential justice of the Northern position. But it was early evident that the newspapers, one and all, were quite unprepared for the determined front soon put up by South Carolina and other Southern States. Surprised by the violence of Southern declarations, the only explanation found by the British press was that political control had been seized by the uneducated and lawless element.
The _Times_ characterized this element of the South as in a state of deplorable ignorance comparable with that of the Irish peasantry, a ”poor, proud, lazy, excitable and violent cla.s.s, ever ready with knife and revolver[43].” The fate of the Union, according to the _Sat.u.r.day Review_, was in the hands of the ”most ignorant, most unscrupulous, and most lawless [cla.s.s] in the world--the poor or mean whites of the Slave States[44].” Like judgments were expressed by the _Economist_ and, more mildly, by the _Spectator_[45]. Subsequently some of these journals found difficulty in this connection, in swinging round the circle to expressions of admiration for the wise and powerful aristocracy of the South; but all, especially the _Times_, were skilled by long practice in the journalistic art of facing about while claiming perfect consistency. In denial of a Southern right of secession, also, they were nearly a unit[46], though the _Sat.u.r.day Review_ argued the case for the South, making a pointed parallel between the present situation and that of the American Colonies in seceding from England[47].
The quotations thus far made exhibit for the leading papers an initial confusion and ignorance difficult to harmonize with the theory of an ”enlightened press.” The Reviews, by the conditions of publication, came into action more slowly and during 1860 there appeared but one article, in the _Edinburgh Review_, giving any adequate idea of what was really taking place in America[48]. The lesser British papers generally followed the tone of the leading journals, but without either great interest or much ac.u.men. In truth the depth of British newspaper ignorance, considering their positiveness of utterance, appears utterly astonis.h.i.+ng if regarded from the view-point of modern historical knowledge. But is this, after all, a matter for surprise? Was there not equal confusion at least, possibly equal ignorance, in America itself, certainly among the press and people of the Northern States? They also had come by experience to discount Southern threats, and were slow to understand that the great conflict of ideals and interests was at last begun.
The British press both influenced and reflected educated cla.s.s opinion, and, in some degree, official opinion as well. Lord John Russell at the Foreign Office and Lord Lyons, British Minister at Was.h.i.+ngton, were exchanging anxious letters, and the latter was sending home reports remarkable for their clear a.n.a.lysis of the American controversy. Yet even he was slow to appreciate the inevitability of secession.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LORD LYONS (_From a photograph taken at Boston, U.S.A., in 1860) (From Lord Newton's ”Life of Lord Lyons,” by kind permission_)]
Other officials, especially those in minor positions in the United States, showed a lack of grasp of the situation similar to that of the press. An amusing ill.u.s.tration of this, furnis.h.i.+ng a far-fetched view of causes, is supplied in a letter of February 2, 1860, from Consul Bunch, at Charleston, S.C., to Lord Lyons, the British Minister at Was.h.i.+ngton[49]. Bunch wrote describing a dinner which had been given the evening before, by the Jockey Club of Charleston. Being called upon for a speech, he had alluded to the prizes of the Turf at home, and had referred especially to the Plates run for the various British colonies.
Continuing, he said:
”'... I cannot help calling your attention to the great loss you yourselves have suffered by ceasing to be a Colonial Dependency of Great Britain, as I am sure that if you had continued to be so, the Queen would have had great pleasure in sending you some Plates too.'
”Of course this was meant for the broadest sort of joke, calculated to raise a laugh after dinner, but to my amazement, the company chose to take me literally, and applauded for about ten minutes--in fact I could not go on for some time.”
Bunch evidently hardly knew what to make of this demonstration. He could with difficulty believe that South Carolina wished to be re-annexed as a colony of Great Britain, and comments upon the episode in a somewhat humorous vein. Nevertheless in concluding his letter, he solemnly a.s.sures Lord Lyons that
”... The Jockey Club is composed of the 'best people' of South Carolina--rich planters and the like. It represents, therefore, the 'gentlemanly interest' and not a bit of universal suffrage.”
It would be idle to a.s.sume that either in South Carolina or in England there was, in February, 1860, any serious thought of a resumption of colonial relations, though W.H. Russell, correspondent of the _Times_, reported in the spring, 1861, that he frequently heard the same sentiment in the South[50]. For general official England, as for the press, the truth is that up to the time of the secession of South Carolina no one really believed that a final rupture was about to take place between North and South. When, on December 20, 1860, that State in solemn convention declared the dissolution ”of the Union now existing between South Carolina and the other States, under the name of the 'United States of America,'” and when it was understood that other Southern States would soon follow this example, British opinion believed and hoped that the rupture would be accomplished peaceably. Until it became clear that war would ensue, the South was still d.a.m.ned by the press as seeking the preservation of an evil inst.i.tution. Slavery was even more vigorously a.s.serted as the ign.o.ble and sole cause. In the number for April, 1861, the _Edinburgh Review_ attributed the whole difficulty to slavery, a.s.serted that British sympathy would be with the anti-slavery party, yet advanced the theory that the very dissolution of the Union would hasten the ultimate extinction of slavery since economic compet.i.tion with a neighbouring free state, the North, would compel the South itself to abandon its beloved ”domestic inst.i.tution[51].”
Upon receipt of the news from South Carolina, the _Times_, in a long and carefully worded editorial, took up one by one the alleged causes of secession, dismissed them as inadequate, and concluded, ”... we cannot disguise from ourselves that, apart from all political complications, there is a right and a wrong in this question, and that the right belongs, with all its advantages, to the States of the North[52].” Three days later it a.s.serted, ”The North is for freedom of discussion, the South represses freedom of discussion with the tar-brush and the pine-f.a.got.” And again, on January 10, ”The Southern States expected sympathy for their undertaking from the public opinion of this country.
The tone of the press has already done much to undeceive them....”
In general both the metropolitan and the provincial press expressed similar sentiments, though there were exceptions. The _Dublin News_ published with approval a long communication addressed to Irishmen at home and abroad: ”... there is no power on earth or in heaven which can keep in peace this unholy co-partners.h.i.+p.... I hope ... that the North will quietly permit the South to retire from the confederacy and bear alone the odium of all mankind[53]....” The _Sat.u.r.day Review_ thought that deeper than declared differences lay the ruling social structure of the South which now visioned a re-opening of the African Slave Trade, and the occupation by slavery of the whole southern portion of North America. ”A more ign.o.ble basis for a great Confederacy it is impossible to conceive, nor one in the long run more precarious.... a.s.suredly it will be the Northern Confederacy, based on principles of freedom, with a policy untainted by crime, with a free working-cla.s.s of white men, that will be the one to go on and prosper and become the leader of the New World[54].” The _London Chronicle_ was vigorous in denunciation. ”No country on the globe produces a blackguardism, a cowardice or a treachery, so consummate as that of the negro-driving States of the new Southern Confederacy”--a bit of editorial blackguardism in itself[55].
The _London Review_ more moderately stigmatized slavery as the cause, but was lukewarm in praise of Northern idealisms, regarding the whole matter as one of diverging economic systems and in any case as inevitably resulting in dissolution of the Union at some time. The inevitable might as well come now as later and would result in benefit to both sections as well as to the world fearing the monstrous empire of power that had grown up in America[56].
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