Part 30 (1/2)
Lindsay's motion was set for debate on this same July 18. Adams thought the story of McClellan's surrender had been set afloat ”to carry the House of Commons off their feet in its debate to-night[703].” The debate itself may be regarded as a serious attempt to push the Ministry into a position more favourable to the South, and the arguments advanced surveyed the entire ground of the causes of secession and the inevitability of the final separation of North and South. They need but brief summary. Lindsay, refusing to accede to appeals for postponement because ”the South was winning anyway,” argued that slavery was no element in the conflict, that the Southern cause was just, and that England, because of her own difficulties, should mediate and bring to a conclusion a hopeless war. He claimed the time was opportune since mediation would be welcomed by a great majority in the North, and he quoted from a letter by a labouring man in Lancas.h.i.+re, stating, ”We think it high time to give the Southern States the recognition they so richly deserve.”
Other pro-Southern speakers emphasized Lancas.h.i.+re distress. Gregory said: ”We should remember what is impending over Lancas.h.i.+re--what want, what woe, what humiliation--and that not caused by the decree of G.o.d, but by the perversity of man. I leave the statistics of the pauperism that is, and that is to be, to my honourable friends, the representatives of manufacturing England.” No statistics were forthcoming from this quarter for not a representative from Lancas.h.i.+re partic.i.p.ated in the debate save Hopwood who at the very end upbraided his fellow members from the district for their silence and was interrupted by cries of ”Divide, Divide.” Lindsay's quoted letter was met by opponents of mediation with the a.s.sertion that the operatives were well known to be united against any action and that they could be sustained ”in luxury” from the public purse for far less a cost than that of a war with America.
But cotton did not play the part expected of it in this debate. Forster in a very able speech cleverly keeping close to a consideration of the effect of mediation on _England_, advanced the idea that such a step would not end the war but would merely intensify it and so prolong English commercial distress. He did state, however, that intervention (as distinct from mediation) would bring on a ”servile war” in America, thus giving evidence of his close touch with Adams and his knowledge of Seward's despatch of May 28. In the main the friends of the North were content to be silent and leave it to the Government to answer Lindsay.
This was good tactics and they were no doubt encouraged to silence by evidence early given in the debate that there would be no positive result from the motion. Gregory showed that this was a real _attack_ on the Government by his bitter criticisms of Russell's ”three months”
speech[704].
At the conclusion of Gregory's speech Lindsay and his friends, their immediate purpose accomplished and fearing a vote, wished to adjourn the debate indefinitely. Palmerston objected. He agreed that everyone earnestly wished the war in America to end, but he declared that such debates were a great mistake unless something definite was to follow since they only served to create irritation in America, both North and South. He concluded with a vigorous a.s.sertion that if the Ministry were to administer the affairs of the nation it ought to be trusted in foreign affairs and not have its hands tied by parliamentary expressions of opinion at inopportune moments. Finally, the South had not yet securely established its independence and hence could not be recognized.
This motion, if carried, would place England on a definite side and thus be fatal to any hope of successful mediation or intervention in the future. Having now made clear the policy of the Government Palmerston did not insist upon a division and the motion was withdrawn[705].
On the surface Lindsay's effort of July 18 had resulted in ignominious failure. Lyons called it ”ill-timed.... I do not think we know here sufficiently the extent of the disaster [to McClellan] to be able to come to any conclusion as to what the European Powers should do.” But the impression left by the debate that there was a strong parliamentary opinion in favour of mediation made Lyons add: ”I suppose Mercier will open full cry on the scent, and be all for mediation. I am still afraid of any attempt of the kind[706].” Very much the same opinion was held by Henry Adams who wrote, ”the pinch has again pa.s.sed by for the moment and we breathe more freely. But I think I wrote to you some time ago that if July found us still in Virginia, we could no longer escape interference.
I think now that it is inevitable.” A definite stand taken by the North on slavery would bring ”the greatest strength in this running battle[707].”
In spite of surface appearances that the debate was ”ill-timed” the ”pinch” was not in fact pa.s.sed as the activities of Slidell and Mason and their friends soon indicated. For a fortnight the Cabinet, reacting to the repeated suggestions of Napoleon, the Northern defeats, and the distress in Lancas.h.i.+re, was seriously considering the possibility of taking some step toward mediation. On July 16, two days before the debate in the Commons, Slidell at last had his first personal contact with Napoleon, and came away from the interview with the conviction that ”if England long persists in her inaction he [Napoleon] would be disposed to act without her.” This was communicated to Mason on July 20[708], but Slidell did _not_ as yet see fit to reveal to Mason that in the interview with Napoleon he had made a definite push for separate action by France, offering inducements on cotton, a special commercial treaty, and ”alliances, defensive, and offensive, for Mexican affairs,”
this last without any authority from Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of State. On July 23 Slidell made a similar offer to Thouvenel and left with him a full memorandum of the Southern proposal[709]. He was cautioned that it was undesirable his special offer to France should reach the ears of the British Government--a caution which he transmitted to Mason on July 30, when sending copies of Benjamin's instructions, but still without revealing the full extent of his own overtures to Napoleon.
[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN SLIDELL (_From Nicolay and Hay's ”Life of Abraham Lincoln”: The Century Co. New York_)]
In all this Slidell was still exhibiting that hankering to pull off a special diplomatic achievement, characteristic of the man, and in line, also, with a persistent theory that the policy most likely to secure results was that of inducing France to act alone. But he was repeatedly running against advice that France must follow Great Britain, and the burden of his July 20 letter to Mason was an urging that a demand for recognition be now made simultaneously in Paris and London. Thouvenel, not at all enthusiastic over Slidell's proposals, told him that this was at least a prerequisite, and on July 23, Slidell wrote Mason the demand should be made at once[710]. Mason, on the advice of Lindsay, Fitzgerald, and Lord Malmesbury, had already prepared a request for recognition, but had deferred making it after listening to the debate of July 18[711]. Now, on July 24, he addressed Russell referring to their interview of February, 1862, in which he had urged the claims of the Confederacy to recognition and again presented them, a.s.serting that the subsequent failure of Northern campaigns had demonstrated the power of the South to maintain its independence. The South, he wrote, asked neither aid nor intervention; it merely desired recognition and continuation of British neutrality[712]. On the same day Mason also asked for an interview[713], but received no reply until July 31, when Russell wrote that no definite answer could be sent until ”after a Cabinet” and that an interview did not seem necessary[714].
This answer clearly indicates that the Government was in uncertainty. It is significant that Russell took this moment to reply at last to Seward's protestations of May 28[715], which had been presented to him by Adams on June 20. He instructed Stuart at Was.h.i.+ngton that his delay had been due to a ”waiting for military events,” but that these had been indecisive. He gave a resume of all the sins of the North as a belligerent and wrote in a distinctly captious spirit. Yet these sins had not ”induced Her Majesty's Government to swerve an inch from an impartial neutrality[716].” Here was no promise of a continuance of neutrality--rather a hint of some coming change. At least one member of the Cabinet was very ready for it. Gladstone wrote privately:
”It is indeed much to be desired that this b.l.o.o.d.y and purposeless conflict should cease. From the first it has been plain enough that the whole question was whether the South was earnest and united. That has now for some months been demonstrated; and the fact thus established at once places the question beyond the region even of the most brilliant military successes[717]....”
Gladstone was primarily influenced by the British commercial situation.
Lyons, still in England, and a consistent opponent of a change of policy, feared this commercial influence. He wrote to Stuart:
”...I can hardly antic.i.p.ate any circ.u.mstances under which I should think the intervention of England in the quarrel between the North and South advisable....
”But it is very unfortunate that no result whatever is apparent from the nominal re-opening of New Orleans and other ports. And the distress in the manufacturing districts threatens to be so great that a pressure may be put upon the Government which they will find it difficult to resist[718].”
In Parliament sneers were indulged in by Palmerston at the expense of the silent cotton manufacturers of Lancas.h.i.+re, much to the fury of Cobden[719]. Of this period Arnold later sarcastically remarked that, ”The representatives of Lancas.h.i.+re in the Houses of Parliament did not permit the gaieties of the Exhibition season wholly to divert their attention from the distress which prevailed in the home county[720].”
Being refused an interview, Mason transmitted to Russell on August 1 a long appeal, rather than a demand, for recognition, using exactly those arguments advanced by Lindsay in debate[721]. The answer, evidently given after that ”Cabinet” for whose decision Russell had been waiting, was dated August 2. In it Russell, as in his reply to Seward on July 28, called attention to the wholly contradictory statements of North and South on the status of the war, which, in British opinion, had not yet reached a stage positively indicative of the permanence of Southern independence. Great Britain, therefore, still ”waited,” but the time might come when Southern firmness in resistance would bring recognition[722]. The tone was more friendly than any expressions. .h.i.therto used by Russell to Southern representatives. The reply does not reveal the decision actually arrived at by the Ministry. Gladstone wrote to Argyll on August 3 that ”yesterday” a Cabinet had been held on the question ”to move or not to move, in the matter of the American Civil War....” He had come away before a decision when it became evident the prevailing sentiment would be ”nothing shall be done until both parties are desirous of it.” Gladstone thought this very foolish; he would have England approach France and Russia, but if they were not ready, wait until they were. ”Something, I trust, will be done before the hot weather is over to stop these frightful horrors[723].”
All parties had been waiting since the debate of July 18 for the Cabinet decision. It was at once generally known as ”no step at present”
and wisdom would have decreed quiet acquiescence. Apparently one Southern friend, on his own initiative, felt the need to splutter. On the next day, August 4, Lord Campbell in the Lords moved for the production of Russell's correspondence with Mason, making a very confused speech. ”Society and Parliament” were convinced the war ought to end in separation. At one time Campbell argued that reconquest of the South was impossible; at another that England should interfere to prevent such reconquest. Again he urged that the North was in a situation where she could not stop the war without aid from Europe in extricating her. Probably the motion was made merely to draw from Russell an official statement. Production of the papers was refused.
Russell stated that the Government still maintained its policy of strict neutrality, that if any action was to be taken it should be by all the maritime powers and that if, in the parliamentary recess, any new policy seemed advisable he would first communicate with those powers. He also declared very positively that as yet no proposal had been received from any foreign power in regard to America, laying stress upon the ”perfect accord” between Great Britain and France[724].
Mason commented on this speech that someone was evidently lying and naturally believed that someone to be Russell. He hoped that France would promptly make this clear[725]. But France gave no sign of lack of ”perfect accord.” On the contrary Thouvenel even discouraged Slidell from following Mason's example of demanding recognition and the formal communication was withheld, Mason acquiescing[726]. Slidell thought new disturbances in Italy responsible for this sudden lessening of French interest in the South, but he was gloomy, seeing again the frustration of high hopes. August 24 he wrote Benjamin:
”You will find by my official correspondence that we are still hard and fast aground here. Nothing will float us off but a strong and continued current of important successes in the field.
I have no hope from England, because I am satisfied that she desires an indefinite prolongation of the war, until the North shall be entirely exhausted and broken down.
Nothing can exceed the selfishness of English statesmen except their wretched hypocrisy. They are continually casting about their disinterested magnaminity and objection of all other considerations than those dictated by a high-toned morality, while their entire policy is marked by egotism and duplicity. I am getting to be heartily tired of Paris[727].”
On August 7 Parliament adjourned, having pa.s.sed on the last day of the session an Act for the relief of the distress in Lancas.h.i.+re by authorizing an extension of powers to the Poor Law Guardians. Like Slidell and Mason pro-Northern circles in London thought that in August there had come to a disastrous end the Southern push for a change in British policy, and were jubilant. To be sure, Russell had merely declared that the time for action was ”not yet” come, but this was regarded as a sop thrown to the South. Neither in informed Southern nor Northern circles outside the Cabinet was there any suspicion, _except by Adams_, that in the six months elapsed since Lindsay had begun his movement the Ministry had been slowly progressing in thoughts of mediation.