North America — Volume 2

by Anthony Trollope

I have said that the American Government behaved well in its mode of giving the men up, and I think that so much should be allowed to them on a review of the whole affair. That Captain Wilkes had no instructions to seize the two men is a known fact. He did seize them and brought them into Boston harbour, to the great delight of his countrymen. This delight I could understand, though of course I did not share it. One of these men had been the parent of the Fugitive Slave Law; the other had been great in fostering the success of filibustering. Both of them were hot secessionists, and undoubtedly rebels. No two men on the continent were more grievous by their antecedents and present characters to all northern feeling. It is impossible to deny that they were rebels against the Government of their country. That Captain Wilkes was not on this account justified in seizing them is now a matter of history, but that the people of the loyal States should rejoice in their seizure was a matter of course. Wilkes was received with an ovation, which as regarded him was ill-judged and undeserved, but which in its spirit was natural. Had the President's Government at that moment disowned the deed done by Wilkes, and declared its intention of giving up the men unasked, the clamour raised would have been very great, and perhaps successful. We were told that the American lawyers were against their doing so; and indeed there was such a shout of triumph that no ministry in a country so democratic could have ventured to go at once against it, and to do so without any external pressure.

Then came the one ministerial blunder. The President put forth his message, in which he was cunningly silent on the Slidell and Mason affair; but to his message was appended, according to custom, the report from Mr. Welles, the Secretary of the Navy. In this report approval was expressed of the deed done by Captain Wilkes. Captain Wilkes was thus in all respects indemnified, and the blame, if any, was taken from his shoulders and put on to the shoulders of that officer who was responsible for the Secretary's letter. It is true that in that letter the Secretary declared that in case of any future seizure the vessel seized must be taken into port, and so declared in animadverting on the fact that Captain Wilkes had not brought the "Trent" into port. But, nevertheless, Secretary Welles approved of Captain Wilkes's conduct. He allowed the reasons to be good which Wilkes had put forward for leaving the ship, and in all respects indemnified the captain. Then the responsibility shifted itself to Secretary Welles; but I think it must be clear that the President, in sending forward that report, took that responsibility upon himself. That he is not bound to send forward the reports of his Secretaries as he receives them;—that he can disapprove them and require alteration, was proved at the very time by the fact that he had in this way condemned Secretary Cameron's report, and caused a portion of it to be omitted. Secretary Cameron had unfortunately allowed his entire report to be printed, and it appeared in a New York paper. It contained a recommendation with reference to the slave question most offensive to a part of the Cabinet, and to the majority of Mr. Lincoln's party. This, by order of the President, was omitted in the official way. It was certainly a pity that Mr. Welles's paragraph respecting the "Trent" was not omitted also. The President was dumb on the matter, and that being so the Secretary should have been dumb also.

But when the demand was made the States Government yielded at once, and yielded without bluster. I cannot say I much admired Mr. Seward's long letter. It was full of smart special pleading, and savoured strongly, as Mr. Seward's productions always do, of the personal author. Mr. Seward was making an effort to place a great State paper on record, but the ars celare artem was altogether wanting; and, if I am not mistaken, he was without the art itself. I think he left the matter very much where he found it. The men however were to be surrendered, and the good policy consisted in this,—that no delay was sought, no diplomatic ambiguities were put into request. It was the opinion of very many that some two or three months might be gained by correspondence, and that at the end of that time things might stand on a different footing. If during that time the North should gain any great success over the South, the States might be in a position to disregard England's threats. No such game was played. The illegality of the arrest was at once acknowledged, and the men were given up,—with a tranquillity that certainly appeared marvellous after all that had so lately occurred.

Then came Mr. Sumner's field day. Mr. Charles Sumner is a senator from Massachusetts, known as a very hot abolitionist and as having been the victim of an attack made upon him in the Senate House by Senator Brookes. He was also at the time of which I am writing Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which position is as near akin to that of a British minister in Parliament as can be attained under the existing constitution of the States. It is not similar, because such chairman is by no means bound to the Government; but he has ministerial relations, and is supposed to be specially conversant with all questions relating to foreign affairs. It was understood that Mr. Sumner did not intend to find fault either with England or with the Government of his own country as to its management of this matter; or that, at least, such fault-finding was not his special object, but that he was desirous to put forth views which might lead to a final settlement of all difficulties with reference to the right of international search.

On such an occasion, a speaker gives himself very little chance of making a favourable impression on his immediate hearers if he reads his speech from a written manuscript. Mr. Sumner did so on this occasion, and I must confess that I was not edified. It seemed to me that he merely repeated, at greater length, the arguments which I had heard fifty times during the last thirty or forty days. I am told that the discourse is considered to be logical, and that it "reads" well. As regards the gist of it, or that result which Mr. Sumner thinks to be desirable, I fully agree with him, as I think will all the civilized world before many years have passed. If international law be what the lawyers say it is, international law must be altered to suit the requirements of modern civilization. By those laws, as they are construed, everything is to be done for two nations at war with each other; but nothing is to be done for all the nations of the world that can manage to maintain the peace. The belligerents are to be treated with every delicacy, as we treat our heinous criminals; but the poor neutrals are to be handled with unjust rigour, as we handle our unfortunate witnesses in order that the murderer may, if possible, be allowed to escape. Two men living in the same street choose to pelt each other across the way with brickbats, and the other inhabitants are denied the privileges of the footpath lest they should interfere with the due prosecution of the quarrel! It is, I suppose, the truth, that we English have insisted on this right of search with more pertinacity than any other nation. Now in this case of Slidell and Mason we have felt ourselves aggrieved, and have resisted. Luckily for us there was no doubt of the illegality of the mode of seizure in this instance; but who will say that if Captain Wilkes had taken the "Trent" into the harbour of New York, in order that the matter might have been adjudged there, England would have been satisfied? Our grievance was, that our mail-packet was stopped on the seas while doing its ordinary beneficent work. And our resolve is, that our mail-packets shall not be so stopped with impunity. As we were high-handed in old days in insisting on this right of search, and as we are high-handed now in resisting a right of search, it certainly behoves us to see that we be just in our modes of proceeding. Would Captain Wilkes have been right according to the existing law if he had carried the "Trent" away to New York? If so, we ought not to be content with having escaped from such a trouble merely through a mistake on his part. Lord Russell says that the "Trent's" voyage was an innocent voyage. That is the fact that should be established;—not only that the voyage was, in truth, innocent, but that it should not be made out to be guilty by any international law. Of its real innocency all thinking men must feel themselves assured. But it is not only of the seizure that we complain, but of the search also. An honest man is not to be handled by a policeman while on his daily work, lest by chance a stolen watch should be in his pocket. If international law did give such power to all belligerents, international law must give it no longer. In the beginning of these matters, as I take it, the object was when two powerful nations were at war to allow the smaller fry of nations to enjoy peace and quiet, and to avoid if possible the general scuffle. Thence arose the position of a neutral. But it was clearly not fair that any such nation, having proclaimed its neutrality, should, after that, fetch and carry for either of the combatants to the prejudice of the other. Hence came the right of search, in order that unjust falsehood might be prevented. But the seas were not then bridged with ships as they are now bridged, and the laws as written were, perhaps, then practical and capable of execution. Now they are impracticable and not capable of execution. It will not, however, do for us to ignore them if they exist; and therefore they should be changed. It is, I think, manifest that our own pretensions as to the right of search must be modified after this. And now I trust I may finish my book without again naming Messrs. Slidell and Mason.

The working of the Senate bears little or no analogy to that of our House of Lords. In the first place, the senator's tenure there is not hereditary, nor is it for life. They are elected, and sit for six years. Their election is not made by the people of their States, but by the State legislature. The two Houses, for instance, of the State of Massachusetts meet together and elect by their joint vote to the vacant seat for their State. It is so arranged that an entirely new senate is not elected every sixth year. Instead of this a third of the number is elected every second year. It is a common thing for senators to be re-elected, and thus to remain in the House for twelve and eighteen years. In our Parliament the House of Commons has greater political strength and wider political action than the House of Lords; but in Congress the Senate counts for more than the House of Representatives in general opinion. Money bills must originate in the House of Representatives, but that is, I think, the only special privilege attaching to the public purse which the lower House enjoys over the upper. Amendments to such bills can be moved in the Senate; and all such bills must pass the Senate before they become law. I am inclined to think that individual members of the Senate work harder than individual representatives. More is expected of them, and any prolonged absence from duty would be more remarked in the Senate than in the other House. In our Parliament this is reversed. The payment made to members of the Senate is 3000 dollars, or £600, per annum, and to a representative, £500 per annum. To this is added certain mileage allowance for travelling backwards and forwards, between their own State and the Capitol. A senator, therefore, from California or Oregon has not altogether a bad place; but the halcyon days of mileage allowances are, I believe, soon to be brought to an end. It is quite within rule that the senator of to-day should be the representative of to-morrow. Mr. Crittenden, who was senator from Kentucky, is now a member of the Lower House from an electoral district in that State. John Quincy Adams went into the House of Representatives after he had been President of the United States.

Divisions in the Senate do not take place as in the House of Representatives. The ayes and noes are called for in the same way; but if a poll be demanded, the clerk of the House calls out the names of the different senators, and makes out lists of the votes according to the separate answers given by the members. The mode is certainly more dignified than that pursued in the other House, where during the ceremony of voting the members look very much like sheep being passed into their pens.

I heard two or three debates in the House of Representatives, and that one especially in which, as I have said before, a chapter was read out of the book of Joshua. The manner in which the Creator's name and the authority of His Word was bandied about the house on that occasion, did not strike me favourably. The question originally under debate was the relative power of the civil and military authority. Congress had desired to declare its ascendancy over military matters; but the army and the Executive generally had demurred to this,—not with an absolute denial of the rights of Congress, but with those civil and almost silent generalities with which a really existing Power so well knows how to treat a nominal Power. The ascendant wife seldom tells her husband in so many words that his opinion in the house is to go for nothing; she merely resolves that such shall be the case, and acts accordingly. An observer could not but perceive that in those days Congress was taking upon itself the part, not exactly of an obedient husband, but of a husband vainly attempting to assert his supremacy. "I have got to learn," said one gentleman after another, rising indignantly on the floor, "that the military authority of our generals is above that of this House." And then one gentleman relieved the difficulty of the position by branching off into an eloquent discourse against slavery, and by causing a chapter to be read out of the book of Joshua.

On that occasion the gentleman's diversion seemed to have the effect of relieving the House altogether from the embarrassment of the original question; but it was becoming manifest, day by day, that Congress was losing its ground, and that the army was becoming indifferent to its thunders:—that the army was doing so, and also that ministers were doing so. In the States, the President and his ministers are not in fact subject to any parliamentary responsibility. The President may be impeached, but the member of an opposition does not always wish to have recourse to such an extreme measure as impeachment. The ministers are not in the houses, and cannot therefore personally answer questions. Different large subjects, such as Foreign affairs, Financial affairs, and Army matters, are referred to Standing Committees in both houses; and these Committees have relations with the ministers. But they have no constitutional power over the ministers; nor have they the much more valuable privilege of badgering a minister hither and thither by vivâ voce questions on every point of his administration. The minister sits safe in his office—safe there for the term of the existing Presidency if he can keep well with the President; and therefore, even under ordinary circumstances, does not care much for the printed or written messages of Congress. But under circumstances so little ordinary as those of 1861-62, while Washington was surrounded by hundreds of thousands of soldiers, Congress was absolutely impotent. Mr. Seward could snap his fingers at Congress, and he did so. He could not snap his fingers at the army; but then he could go with the army,—could keep the army on his side by remaining on the same side with the army; and this, as it seemed, he resolved to do. It must be understood that Mr. Seward was not Prime Minister. The President of the United States has no Prime Minister,—or hitherto has had none. The Minister for Foreign Affairs has usually stood highest in the Cabinet, and Mr. Seward, as holding that position, was not inclined to lessen its authority. He was gradually assuming for that position the prerogatives of a Premier, and men were beginning to talk of Mr. Seward's ministry. It may easily be understood that at such a time the powers of Congress would be undefined, and that ambitious members of Congress would rise and assert on the floor, with that peculiar voice of indignation so common in parliamentary debate, "that they had got to learn," &c., &c., &c. It seemed to me that the lesson which they had yet to learn was then in the process of being taught to them. They were anxious to be told all about the mischance at Ball's Bluff, but nobody would tell them anything about it. They wanted to know something of that blockade on the Potomac; but such knowledge was not good for them. "Pack them up in boxes, and send them home," one military gentleman said to me. And I began to think that something of the kind would be done, if they made themselves troublesome. I quote here the manner in which their questions, respecting the affair at Ball's Bluff, were answered by the Secretary of War. "The Speaker laid before the House a letter from the Secretary at War, in which he says that he has the honour to acknowledge the receipt of the resolution adopted on the 6th instant, to the effect that the answer of the department to the resolution passed on the second day of the session, is not responsive and satisfactory to the House, and requesting a further answer. The Secretary has now to state that measures have been taken to ascertain who is responsible for the disastrous movement at Ball's Bluff, but that it is not compatible with the public interest to make known those measures at the present time."

In truth the days are evil for any Congress of debaters, when a great army is in camp on every side of them. The people had called for the army, and there it was. It was of younger birth than Congress, and had thrown its elder brother considerably out of favour, as has been done before by many a new-born baby. If Congress could amuse itself with a few set speeches, and a field-day or two, such as those afforded by Mr. Sumner, it might all be very well,—provided that such speeches did not attack the army. Over and beyond this, let them vote the supplies and have done with it. Was it probable that General Maclellan should have time to answer questions about Ball's Bluff,—and he with such a job of work on his hands? Congress could of course vote what committees of military inquiry it might please, and might ask questions without end; but we all know to what such questions lead, when the questioner has no power to force an answer by a penalty. If it might be possible to maintain the semblance of respect for Congress, without too much embarrassment to military secretaries, such semblance should be maintained; but if Congress chose to make itself really disagreeable, then no semblance could be kept up any longer. That, as far as I could judge, was the position of Congress in the early months of 1862; and that, under existing circumstances, was perhaps the only possible position that it could fill.