9: The Crucial Matter
<< 8: The Rule of Lincoln || 10: The Secretary of the Treasury >>
It is the custom of historians to measure the relative strength
of North and South chiefly in terms of population. The North
numbered 23,000,000 inhabitants; the South, about 9,000,000, of
which the slave population amounted to 3,500,000. But these
obvious statistics only partially indicate the real situation.
Not what one has, but what one is capable of using is, of course,
the true measure of strength. If, in 1861, either side could
have struck swiftly and with all its force, the story of the war
would have been different. The question of relative strength was
in reality a question of munitions. Both powers were glaringly
unprepared. Both had instant need of great supplies of arms and
ammunition, and both turned to European manufacturers for aid.
Those Americans who, in a later war, wished to make illegal the
neutral trade in munitions forgot that the international right of
a belligerent to buy arms from a neutral had prevented their own
destruction in 1861. In the supreme American crisis, agents of
both North and South hurried to Europe in quest of munitions. On
the Northern side the work was done chiefly by the three
ministers, Charles Francis Adams, at London; William L. Dayton,
at Paris; and Henry S. Sanford, at Brussels; by an able special
agent, Colonel George L. Schuyler; and by the famous
banking-house of Baring Brothers, which one might almost have
called the European department of the United States Treasury.
The eager solicitude of the War Department over the competition
of the two groups of agents in Europe informs a number of
dispatches that are, today, precious admonitions to the heedless
descendants of that dreadful time. As late as October, 1861, the
Acting Secretary of War wrote to Schuyler, one of whose shipments
had been delayed: "The Department earnestly hopes to
receive...the 12,000 Enfield rifles and the remainder of the
27,000, which you state you have purchased, by the earliest
steamer following. Could you appreciate the circumstances by
which we are surrounded, you would readily understand the urgent
necessity there is for the immediate delivery of all the arms you
are authorized to purchase. The Department expects to hear that
you have been able to conclude the negotiations for the 48,000
rifles from the French government arsenals." That the
Confederate Government acted even more promptly than the Union
Government appears from a letter of Sanford to Seward in May: "I
have vainly expected orders," he complains, "for the purchase of
arms for the Government, and am tempted to order from Belgium all
they can send over immediately.... Meanwhile the workshops are
filling with orders from the South.... It distresses me to think
that while we are in want of them, Southern money is taking them
away to be used against us."
At London, Adams took it upon himself to contract for arms in
advance of instructions. He wrote to Seward: "Aware of the
degree to which I exceed my authority in taking such a step,
nothing but a conviction of the need in which the country stands
of such assistance and the joint opinion of all the diplomatic
agents of the United States...in Paris, has induced me to
overcome my scruples." How real was the necessity of which this
able diplomat was so early conscious, is demonstrated at every
turn in the papers of the War Department. Witness this brief
dispatch from Harrisburg: "All ready to leave but no arms.
Governor not willing to let us leave State without them, as act
of Assembly forbids. Can arms be sent here?" When this appeal
was made, in December, 1861, arms were pouring into the country
from Europe, and the crisis had passed. But if this appeal had
been made earlier in the year, the inevitable answer may be
guessed from a dispatch which the Ordnance Office sent, as late
as September, to the authorities of West Virginia, refusing to
supply them with arms because the supplies were exhausted, and
adding, "Every possible exertion is being made to obtain
additional supplies by contract, by manufacture, and by purchase,
and as soon as they can be procured by any means, in any way,
they will be supplied."
Curiously enough, not only the Confederacy but various States of
the North were more expeditious in this all-important matter than
Cameron and the War Department. Schuyler's first dispatch from
London gives this singular information: "All private
establishments in Birmingham and London are now working for the
States of Ohio, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, except the London
Armory, whose manufacture is supposed to go to the Rebels, but of
this last fact I am not positively informed. I am making
arrangements to secure these establishments for our Government,
if desirable after the present State contracts expire. On the
Continent, Messrs, Dayton and Sanford...have been making
contracts and agreements of various kinds, of which you are by
this time informed." Soon afterward, from Paris, he made a long
report detailing the difficulties of his task, the limitations of
the existing munitions plants in Europe, and promising among
other things those "48,000 rifles from the French government
arsenals" for which, in the letter already quoted, the War
Department yearned. It was an enormous labor; and, strive as he
would, Schuyler found American mail continuing to bring him such
letters as this from the Assistant Secretary of War in October:
"I notice with much regret that [in the latest consignment] there
were no guns sent, as it was confidently expected that 20,000
would arrive by the [steamship] Fulton, and accordingly
arrangements had been made to distribute them through the
different States. Prompt and early shipments of guns are
desirable. We hope to hear by next steamer that you have shipped
from 80,000 to 100,000 stand."
The last word on the problem of munitions, which was so
significant a factor in the larger problem, is the report of the
United States Ordnance Office for the first year of the war. It
shows that between April, 1861, and June, 1862, the Government
purchased from American manufacturers somewhat over 30,000
rifles, and that from European makers it purchased 726,000.
From these illustrations it is therefore obvious that the true
measure of the immediate strength of the American contestants in
1861 was the extent of their ability to supply themselves from
Europe; and this, stated more concretely, became the question as
to which was the better able to keep its ports open and receive
the absolutely essential European aid. Lincoln showed his clear
realization of the situation when he issued, immediately after
the first call for volunteers, a proclamation blockading the
Southern coasts. Whether the Northern people at the time
appreciated the significance of this order is a question. Amid
the wild and vain clamor of the multitude in 1861, with its
conventional and old-fashioned notion of war as a thing of
trumpets and glittering armies, the North seems wholly to have
ignored its fleet; and yet in the beginning this resource was its
only strength.
The fleet was small, to be sure, but its task was at first also
small. There were few Southern ports which were doing a regular
business with Europe, and to close these was not difficult. As
other ports opened and the task of blockade grew, the Northern
navy also increased. Within a few months, to the few observers
who did not lose their heads, it was plain that the North had won
the first great contest of the war. It had so hampered Southern
trade that Lincoln's advantage in arming the North from Europe
was ten to one. At the very time when detractors of Lincoln were
hysterical over the removal of Fremont, when Grimes wrote to
Fessenden that the country was going to the dogs as fast as
imbecility could carry it, this great achievement had quietly
taken place. An expedition sailing in August from Fortress
Monroe seized the forts which commanded Hatteras Inlet off the
coast of North Carolina. In November, Commander Dupont, U. S.
N., seized Port Royal, one of the best harbors on the coast of
South Carolina, and established there a naval base. Thenceforth,
while the open Northern ports received European munitions without
hindrance, it was a risky business getting munitions into the
ports of the South. Only the boldest traders would attempt to
"run the blockade," to evade the Federal patrol ships by night
and run into a Southern port.
However, for one moment in the autumn of 1861, it seemed as if
all the masterful work of the Northern navy would be undone by
the Northern people themselves in backing up the rashness of
Captain Charles Wilkes, of the war-ship San Jacinto. On the high
seas he overhauled the British mail steamer, Trent. Aboard her
were two Confederate diplomatic agents, James M. Mason and John
Slidell, who had run the blockade from Charleston to Havana and
were now on their way to England. Wilkes took off the two
Confederates as prisoners of war. The crowd in the North went
wild. "We do not believe," said the New York Times, "that the
American heart ever thrilled with more sincere delight."
The intemperate joy of the crowd over the rashness of Wilkes was
due in part to a feeling of bitterness against the British
Government. In May, 1861, the Queen had issued a proclamation of
neutrality, whose justification in international law was hotly
debated at the time and was generally denied by Northerners.
England was the great cotton market of the world. To the excited
Northern mind, in 1861, there could be but one explanation of
England's action: a partisan desire to serve the South, to break
up the blockade, and to secure cotton. Whether such was the real
purpose of the ministry then in power is now doubted; but at that
time it was the beginning of a sharp contention between the two
Governments. The Trent affair naturally increased the tension.
So keen was the indignation of all classes of Englishmen that it
seemed, for a moment, as if the next step would be war.
In America, the prompt demand for the release of Mason and
Slidell was met, at first, in a spirit equally bellicose.
Fortunately there were cool and clear heads that at once
condemned Wilkes's action as a gross breach of international law.
Prominent among these was Sumner. The American Government,
however, admitted the justice of the British demand and the
envoys were released.
Relations with the United States now became a burning issue in
English politics. There were three distinct groups in
Parliament. The representatives of the aristocracy, whether
Liberals or Conservatives, in the main sympathized with the
South. So did most of the large manufacturers whose business
interests were affected by cotton. Great bitterness grew up
among the Northerners against both these groups, partly because
in the past many of their members had condemned slavery and had
said scornful things about America for tolerating it. To these
Northerners the Englishmen replied that Lincoln himself had
declared the war was not over slavery; that it was an ordinary
civil war not involving moral issues. Nevertheless, the third
Parliamentary group insisted that the American war, no matter
what the motives of the participants, would, in the event of a
Northern victory, bring about the abolition of slavery, whereas,
if the South won, the result would be the perpetuation of
slavery. This third group, therefore, threw all its weight on
the side of the North. In this group Lincoln recognized his
allies, and their cause he identified with his own in his letter
to English workmen which was quoted in the previous Chapter.
Their leaders in Parliament were Richard Cobden, W. E. Forster,
and John Bright. All these groups were represented in the
Liberal party, which, for the moment, was in power.
In the Cabinet itself there was a "Northern" and a "Southern"
faction. Then, too, there were some who sympathized with the
North but who felt that its cause was hopeless—so little did
they understand the relative strength of the two sections—and
who felt that the war was a terrible proof of the uselessness of
mere suffering. Gladstone, in later days, wished to be thought
of as having been one of these, though at the time, a famous
utterance of his was construed in the North as a declaration of
hostility. To a great audience at Newcastle he said in October,
1862: "We may have our own opinions about slavery; we may be for
or against the South; but there is no doubt that Jefferson Davis
and other leaders of the South have made an army; they are
making, it appears, a navy; and they have made, what is more than
either—they have made a nation."
The Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, wished to intervene in the
American war and bring about an amicable separation into two
countries, and so, apparently, did the Foreign Secretary, Lord
John Russell. Recently, the American minister had vainly
protested against the sailing of a ship known as 290 which was
being equipped at Liverpool presumably for the service of the
Confederacy, and which became the famous Alabama. For two years
it roved the ocean destroying Northern commerce, and not until it
was sunk at last in a battle with the U. S. S. Kearsarge did all
the maritime interests of the North breathe again freely. In
time and as a result of arbitration, England paid for the ships
sunk by the Alabama. But in 1862, the protests of the American
minister fell on deaf ears.
It must be added that the sailing of the Alabama from Liverpool
was due probably to the carelessness of British officials rather
than to deliberate purpose. And yet the fact is clear that about
the first of October, 1862, the British ministry was on the verge
of intervening to secure recognition of the independence of the
Southern confederacy. The chief motive pressing them forward was
the distress in England caused by the lack of cotton which
resulted from the American blockade. In 1860, the South had
exported 615,000 bales; in 1861, only 10,127 bales. In 1862 half
the spindles of Manchester were idle; the workmen were out of
employment; the owners were without dividends. It was chiefly by
these manufacturing capitalists that pressure was put upon the
ministry, and it was in the manufacturing district that
Gladstone, thinking the Government was likely to intervene, made
his allusion to the South as a nation.
Meanwhile the Emperor of the French was considering a proposal to
England and Russia to join with him in mediation between the
American belligerents. On October 28, 1862, Napoleon III gave
audience to the Confederate envoy at Paris, discussed the
Southern cause in the most friendly manner, questioned him upon
the Maryland campaign, plainly indicated his purpose to attempt
intervention, and at parting cordially shook hands with him.
Within a few days the Emperor made good his implied promise.
The month of November, 1862, is one of the turningpoints in
American foreign relations. Both Russia and England rejected
France's proposal. The motive usually assigned to the Emperor
Alexander is his hatred of everything associated with slavery.
His own most famous action was the liberation of the Russian
serfs. The motives of the British ministry, however, appear more
problematical.
Mr. Rhodes thinks he can discern evidence that Adams communicated
indirectly to Palmerston the contents of a dispatch from Seward
which indicated that the United States would accept war rather
than mediation. Palmerston had kept his eyes upon the Maryland
campaign, and Lee's withdrawal did not increase his confidence in
the strength of the South. Lord Russell, two months previous,
had flatly told the Confederate envoy at London that the South
need not hope for recognition unless it could establish itself
without aid, and that "the fluctuating events of the war, the
alternation of defeat and victory," composed such a contradictory
situation that "Her Majesty's Government are still determined to
wait."
Perhaps the veiled American warning—assuming it was conveyed to
Palmerston, which seems highly probable—was not the only
diplomatic innuendo of the autumn of 1862 that has escaped the
pages of history. Slidell at Paris, putting together the
statements of the British Ambassador and those of the French
Minister of Foreign Affairs, found in them contradictions as to
what was going on between the two governments in relation to
America. He took a hand by attempting to inspire M. Drouyn de
L'huys with distrust of England, telling him he "HAD SEEN...a
letter from a leading member of the British Cabinet...in which he
very plainly insinuated that France was playing an unfair game,"
trying to use England as Napoleon's catspaw. Among the many
motives that may well have animated the Palmerston Government in
its waiting policy, a distrust of Napoleon deserves to be
considered.
It is scarcely rash, however, to find the chief motive in home
politics. The impetuous Gladstone at Newcastle lost his head and
spoke too soon. The most serious effect of his premature
utterance was the prompt reaction of the "Northern party" in the
Cabinet and in the country. Whatever Palmerston's secret desires
were, he was not prepared to take the high hand, and he therefore
permitted other members of the Cabinet to state in public that
Gladstone had been misunderstood. In an interview with Adams,
Lord Russell, "whilst endeavoring to excuse Mr. Gladstone,"
assured him that "the policy of the Government was to adhere to a
strict neutrality and leave the struggle to settle itself." In
the last analysis, the Northern party in England was gaining
ground. The news from America, possibly, and Gladstone's
rashness, certainly, roused it to increased activity.
Palmerston, whose tenure of power was none too secure, dared not
risk a break that might carry the disaffected into the ranks of
the Opposition.
From this time forward the North rapidly grew in favor in British
public opinion, and its influence upon the Government speedily
increased.
Says Lord Charnwood in his recent life of Lincoln: "The battle of
Antietam was followed within five days by an event which made it
impossible for any government of this country to take action
unfriendly to the North." He refers of course to the
Emancipation Proclamation, which was issued on September 23,
1862. Lord Charnwood's remark may be too dramatic. But there
can be no doubt that the Emancipation Proclamation was the
turning-point in Lincoln's foreign policy; and because of it, his
friends in England eventually forced the Government to play into
his hands, and so frustrated Napoleon's scheme for intervention.
Consequently Lincoln was able to maintain the blockade by means
of which the South was strangled. Thus, at bottom, the crucial
matter was Emancipation.
Lincoln's policy with regard to slavery passed through three
distinct stages. As we have seen, he proposed, at first, to
pledge the Government not to interfere with slavery in the States
where it then existed. This was his maximum of compromise. He
would not agree to permitting its extension into new territory.
He maintained this position through 1861, when it was made an
accusation against him by the Abolitionists and contributed to
the ebb of his popularity. It also played a great part in the
episode of Fremont. At a crucial moment in Fremont's career,
when his hold upon popularity seemed precarious, he set at naught
the policy of the President and issued an order (August 30,
1861), which confiscated all property and slaves of those who
were in arms against the United States or actively aiding the
enemy, and which created a "bureau of abolition." Whether
Fremont was acting from conviction or "playing politics" may be
left to his biographers. In a most tactful letter Lincoln asked
him to modify the order so as to conform to the Confiscation Act
of Congress; and when Fremont proved obdurate, Lincoln ordered
him to do so. In the outcry against Lincoln when Fremont was at
last removed, the Abolitionists rang the changes on this reversal
of his policy of military abolition.
Another Federal General, Benjamin F. Butler, in the course of
1861, also raised the issue, though not in the bold fashion of
Fremont. Runaway slaves came to his camp on the Virginia coast,
and he refused to surrender them to the owners. He took the
ground that, as they had probably been used in building
Confederate fortifications, they might be considered contraband
of war. He was sustained by Congress, which passed what is
commonly called the First Confiscation Act providing that slaves
used by Confederate armies in military labor should, if captured,
be "forfeited"—which of course meant that they should be set
free. But this did not settle what should be done with runaways
whose masters, though residents of seceded States, were loyal to
the Union. The War Department decided that they should be held
until the end of the war, when probably there would be made "just
compensation to loyal masters."
This first stage of Lincoln's policy rested upon the hope that
the Union might be restored without prolonged war. He abandoned
this hope about the end of the year. Thereupon, his policy
entered its second stage. In the spring of 1862 he formulated a
plan for gradual emancipation with compensation. The slaves of
Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and the District of
Columbia were to be purchased at the rate of $400 each, thus
involving a total expenditure of $173,000,000. Although Congress
adopted the joint resolution recommended by the President, the
"border States" would not accept the plan. But Congress, by
virtue of its plenary power, freed the slaves by purchase in the
District of Columbia, and prohibited slavery in all the
territories of the United States.
During the second stage of his policy Lincoln again had to
reverse the action of an unruly general. The Federal forces
operating from their base at Port Royal had occupied a
considerable portion of the Carolina coast. General Hunter
issued an order freeing all the slaves in South Carolina,
Georgia, and Florida. In countermanding the order, Lincoln made
another futile appeal to the people of the border States to adopt
some plan of compensated emancipation.
"I do not argue," he said; "I beseech you to make arguments for
yourselves. You cannot, if you would be blind to the signs of
the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of
them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partisan
politics. This proposal makes common cause for a common object,
casting no reproaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The
change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven,
not rending or wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it? So
much good has not been done by one effort in all past time, as in
the providence of God it is now your high privilege to do. May
the vast future not have to lament that you neglected it. "
This persuasive attitude and reluctance to force the issue had
greatly displeased the Abolitionists. Their most gifted orator,
Wendell Phillips, reviled Lincoln with all the power of his
literary genius, and with a fury that might be called malevolent.
Meanwhile, a Second Confiscation Act proclaimed freedom for the
slaves of all those who supported the Confederate Government.
Horace Greeley now published in the "New York Tribune" an
editorial entitled, "The Prayer of Twenty Millions." He
denounced Lincoln's treatment of Fremont and Hunter and demanded
radical action. Lincoln replied in a letter now famous. "I would
save the Union," said he, "I would save it the shortest way under
the Constitution.... If I could save the Union without freeing
any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some
and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about
slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to
save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not
believe it would help to save the Union."
However, at the very time when he wrote this remarkable letter,
he had in his own mind entered upon the third stage of his
policy. He had even then discussed with his Cabinet an
announcement favoring general emancipation. The time did not
seem to them ripe. It was decided to wait until a Federal
victory should save the announcement from appearing to be a cry
of desperation. Antietam, which the North interpreted as a
victory, gave Lincoln his opportunity.
The Emancipation Proclamation applied only to the States in arms
against the Federal Government. Such States were given three
months in which to return to the Union. Thereafter, if they did
not return, their slaves would be regarded by that Government as
free. No distinction was made between slaves owned by supporters
of the Confederacy and those whose owners were in opposition to
it. The Proclamation had no bearing on those slave States which
had not seceded. Needless to add, no seceded State returned, and
a second Proclamation making their slaves theoretically free was
in due time issued on the first of January, 1863.
It must not be forgotten that this radical change of policy was
made in September, 1862. We have already heard of the elections
which took place soon after—those elections which mark perhaps
the lowest ebb of Lincoln's popularity, when Seymour was elected
Governor of New York, and the peace party gained over thirty
seats in Congress. It is a question whether, as a purely
domestic measure, the Emancipation Proclamation was not, for the
time, an injury to the Lincoln Government. And yet it was the
real turningpoint in the fortunes of the North. It was the
central fact in the maintenance of the blockade.
In England at this time the cotton famine was at its height.
Nearly a million people in the manufacturing districts were
wholly dependent upon charity. This result of the blockade had
been foreseen by the Confederate Government which was confident
that the distress of England's working people would compel the
English ministry to intervene and break the blockade. The
employers in England whose loss was wholly financial, did as the
Confederates hoped they would do. The workmen, however, took a
different course. Schooled by a number of able debaters, they
fell into line with that third group of political leaders who saw
in the victory of the North, whatever its motives, the eventual
extinction of slavery. To these people, the Emancipation
Proclamation gave a definite programme. It was now, the leaders
argued, no longer a question of eventual effect; the North had
proclaimed a motive and that motive was the extinction of
slavery. Great numbers of Englishmen of all classes who had
hitherto held back from supporting Cobden and Bright now ranged
themselves on their side. Addresses of praise and sympathy
"began to pour into the Legation of the United States in a steady
and ever swelling stream." An immense popular demonstration took
place at Exeter Hall. Cobden, writing to Sumner, described the
new situation in British politics, in a letter amounting to an
assurance that the Government never again would attempt to resist
the popular pressure in favor of the North.
On the last day of 1862 a meeting of workingmen at Manchester,
where the cotton famine was causing untold misery, adopted one of
those New Year greetings to Lincoln. Lincoln's reply expressed
with his usual directness his own view of the sympathetic
relation that had been established between the democratic classes
of the two countries:
"I know and deeply deplore the sufferings which the workingmen at
Manchester, and in all Europe, are called to endure in this
crisis. It has been often and studiously represented that the
attempt to overthrow this Government, which was built upon the
foundation of human rights, and to substitute for it one which
should rest exclusively on the basis of human slavery, was likely
to obtain the favor of Europe. Through the action of our
disloyal citizens, the workingmen of Europe have been subjected
to severe trials, for the purpose of forcing their sanction to
that attempt. Under the circumstances, I cannot but regard your
decisive utterances upon the question as an instance of sublime
Christian heroism which has not been surpassed in any age or in
any country. It is indeed an energetic and reinspiring assurance
of the inherent power of truth, and of the ultimate triumph of
justice, humanity, and freedom. I do not doubt that the
sentiments you have expressed will be sustained by your great
nation; and, on the other hand, I have no hesitation in assuring
you that they will excite admiration, esteem, and the most
reciprocal feelings of friendship among the American people. I
hail this interchange of sentiment, therefore, as an augury that
whatever else may happen, whatever misfortune may befall your
country or my own, the peace and friendship which now exists
between the two nations will be, as it shall be my desire to make
them, perpetual."
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