Great Britain and the American Civil War

by Ephraim Douglass Adams

A comparison of dates shows that the unanimity of conservative and aristocratic expression on the failure of American democracy and its lesson to England was most marked and most open at the moment when the Government was seriously considering an offer of mediation in the war. Meanwhile the emancipation proclamation of September, 1862, had appeared. It did not immediately affect governmental attitude, save adversely to the North, and it gave a handle for pro-Southern outcry on the score of a "servile war." Indeed, the radicals were at first depressed by it; but when months passed with no appearance of a servile war and when the second emancipation proclamation of January, 1863, further certified the moral purpose of the North, a great element of strength was added to the English advocates of democracy. The numerous "addresses" to Lincoln exhibited both a revived moral enthusiasm for the cause of anti-slavery and were frequently combined with a laudation of American political institutions. The great mass-meeting at Exeter Hall, January 29, 1863, was described by the correspondent of an American paper as largely deriving its strength from the universal dissatisfaction of the lower orders of the English people with their existing conditions under the Crown:

"The descendants of the Roundhead commoners, chafing under the limitations of the franchise, burdensome taxation, the contempt with which they are regarded by the lords of the soil, the grievous effects of the laws of entail and primogeniture, whereby they are kept poor and rendered liable to starvation and pauperism--these have looked to America as the model democracy which proves the poor man's capacity for self-government." The meeting was called for seven o'clock but at half after five the hall was filled, and at six crowded. A second hall was filled and outdoor meetings of two thousand people organized in Exeter Street. "All working-class England was up in arms, not so much against slavery as against British oligarchy[1361]."

The correspondent further reported rumours that this meeting had caused anxious consideration to the managers of the Times, and the decision to step more warily. No doubt this was exaggeration of the political character and effect of the meeting, but certain it is that the political element was present joining hands with anti-slavery enthusiasm. Also it is noteworthy that the last confident and vigorous expression of the "failure" of democracy, from sources professedly neutral, appeared immediately after the St. James' Hall meeting, but was necessarily written before that meeting took place. Blackwood's, in its issue of February, 1863, declared, as before: "Every sensible man in this country now acknowledges ... that we have already gone as far toward democracy as is safe to go.... This is the great moral benefit which we have derived from the events in America." John Blackwood was an intimate friend of Delane, editor of the Times, holding similar views on political questions; but the Times was suddenly grown cautious in reading English political lessons from America. In truth, attack now rested with the Radicals and Bright's oratory was in great demand[1362]. He now advanced from the defensive position of laudation of the North to the offensive one of attacking the Southern aristocracy, not merely because it wished to perpetuate African slavery, but because it desired to make all the working-classes as subservient to it as was the negro[1363]. It was now Radical purpose to keep the battle raging and they were succeeding. Bigelow believed that the United States might well recognize its opportunity in this controversy and give aid to its friends:

"After all, this struggle of ours both at home and abroad is but a struggle between the principle of popular government and government by a privileged class. The people therefore all the world over are in a species of solidarity which it is our duty and interest to cultivate to the utmost[1364]."

But Adams gave contrary advice. Wholly sympathetic with the democratic movement in England as now, somewhat to his surprise, developed, he yet feared that the extremes to which Bright and others were going in support of the North might create unfortunate reactions in the Government. Especially he was anxious that the United States should not offer opportunity for accusation of interference in a British political quarrel. It is noteworthy that while many addresses to Lincoln were forwarded by him and many were printed in the annual publication of diplomatic correspondence, those that thus appeared dealt almost exclusively with emancipation. Yet Adams was also forwarding addresses and speeches harping on American democracy. A meeting at Edinburgh, February 19, found place, in its emancipation aspect in the United States documents[1365], but the burden of that meeting, democracy, did not. It was there proclaimed that the British press misrepresented conditions in America, "because the future of free political institutions, as sketched in the American Declaration of Independence and in the State Constitutions of the Northern States, would be a standing argument against the expansion of the franchise and the enjoyment of just political rights among us, as well as a convenient argument in favour of the continued domination of our aristocratic parties[1366]." The tide of democratic feeling was rising rapidly in England. On March 26, Adams wrote to Seward of a recent debate in Parliament that that body was much more judicious in expressions on America than it had been before 1862. "It will not escape your observation that the question is now felt to be taking a shape which was scarcely anticipated by the managers [of the Times] when they first undertook to guide the British mind to the overthrow of free institutions in America[1367]."

On the evening of the day on which this was written there occurred the greatest, most outspoken, and most denunciatory to the aristocracy, of the meetings held to support the cause of the North. This was the spectacular gathering of the Trades Unions of London at St. James' Hall, on March 26, usually regarded as the culminating effort in Bright's tour of England for the cause of democracy, but whose origin is somewhat shrouded in mystery. Socialist tradition claims that Karl Marx conceived the idea of the meeting and was responsible for its organization[1368]. The press generally reported it as a "Bright Meeting." Adams wrote to Seward of the pressure put on him by Professor Beesly, of the University of London, to send a representative from the American Ministry, Beesly expanding upon the importance and high standing of the Trades Unions. To this Adams demurred but finally sent his son to sit in the audience and report the proceedings.

Whatever its origin there can be no doubt that this was the most important of all pro-Northern meetings held in England during the Civil War, nor that its keynote was "America fighting the battle of democracy." Save for some distinguished speakers those in attendance consisted almost wholly of three thousand picked representatives of the Trades Unions of London. Adams transmitted to Seward his son's report of the meeting, its character, composition, names of speakers and their emphatic expressions of friendship for the North[1369], but it is again noteworthy that Henry Adams' clear analysis of the real significance of the meeting was not printed in the published diplomatic correspondence. Giving due praise to the speeches of Bright and Beesly, and commenting on press assertions that "the extraordinary numbers there were only brought together by their curiosity to hear Mr. Bright," Henry Adams continued: "That this was not the case must have been evident to every person present. In fact, it was only after he closed that the real business of the evening began." Then followed speeches and the introduction of resolutions by "Mr. Howell, a bricklayer ... Mr. Odgers, a shoemaker ... Mr. Mantz, a compositor ... Mr. Cremer, a joiner, who was bitter against Lord Palmerston ... Mr. Conolly, a mason...." and other labouring men, all asserting "that the success of free institutions in America was a political question of deep consequence in England and that they would not tolerate any interference unfavourable to the North." No one, the report emphasized, "could doubt what was intended."

"The meeting was a demonstration of democratic strength and no concealment of this fact was made. If it did not have a direct political bearing on internal politics in England it needed little of doing so. There was not even a profession of faith in the government of England as at present constituted. Every hostile allusion to the Aristocracy, the Church, the opinions of the 'privileged classes,' was received with warm cheers. Every allusion to the republican institutions of America, the right of suffrage, the right of self-taxation, the 'sunlight' of republican influence, was caught up by the audience with vehement applause. It may therefore be considered as fairly and authoritatively announced that the class of skilled workmen in London--that is the leaders of the pure popular movement in England--have announced by an act almost without precedent in their history, the principle that they make common cause with the Americans who are struggling for the restoration of the Union and that all their power and influence shall be used on behalf of the North[1370]."

Bright's words of most scarifying indictment of "Privilege," and his appeal to workers to join hands with their fellows in America have been given in a previous chapter[1371]. Evidently that appeal, though enthusiastically received for its oratorical brilliance, was unneeded. His was but an eloquent expression of that which was in the minds of his audience. Upon the American Minister the effect was to cause him to renew warnings against showing too keen an appreciation of the support of political radicalism in England. The meeting, he wrote, had at once stirred anxiety in Parliament and verged:

"... much too closely upon the minatory in the domestic politics of this Kingdom to make it easy to recognize or sympathize with by Foreign Governments.... Hence it seems to me of the greatest consequence that the treatment of all present questions between the two nations should be regulated by a provident forecast of what may follow it [the political struggle in England] hereafter. I am not sure that some parties here would not now be willing even to take the risk of a war in order the more effectually to turn the scale against us, and thus, as they think, to crush the rising spirit of their own population. That this is only a feeling at present and has not yet risen to the dignity of a policy may be true enough; but that does not the less impose upon the Government at home a duty so to shape its actions as, if possible, to defeat all such calculations and dissipate such hopes.... We owe this duty not less to the great body of those who in this kingdom are friends to us and our institutions, than to ourselves[1372]."