In itself, Seward's "foreign war panacea" policy does not deserve the place in history usually accorded it as a moment of extreme crisis in British-American relations. There was never any danger of war from it, for Lincoln nipped the policy in the bud. The public excitement in America over the Queen's Proclamation was, indeed, intense; but this did not alter the Governmental attitude. In England all that the public knew was this American irritation and clamour. The London press expressed itself a bit more cautiously, for the moment, merely defending the necessity of British neutrality[235]. But if regarded from the effect upon British Ministers the incident was one of great, possibly even vital, importance in the relations of the two countries. Lyons had been gravely anxious to the point of alarm. Russell, less acutely alarmed, was yet seriously disturbed. Both at Washington and in London the suspicion of Seward lasted throughout the earlier years of the war, and to British Ministers it seemed that at any moment he might recover leadership and revert to a dangerous mood. British attitude toward America was affected in two opposite ways; Britain was determined not to be bullied, and Russell himself sometimes went to the point of arrogance in answer to American complaints; this was an unfortunate result. But more fortunate, and also a result, was the British Government's determination to step warily in the American conflict and to give no just cause, unless on due consideration of policy, for a rupture of relations with the United States. Seward's folly in May of 1861, from every angle but a short-lived "brain-storm," served America well in the first years of her great crisis.
FOOTNOTES:
[197] See ante, p. 80.
[198] Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, II, p. 378. Seward to Weed, December 27, 1861.
[199] Ibid., p. 355. Weed's letter was on the Trent affair, but he went out of his way to depict Seward as attempting a bit of humour with Newcastle.
[200] Schleiden, a native of Schleswig, was educated at the University of Berlin, and entered the Danish customs service. In the German revolution of 1848 he was a delegate from Schleswig-Holstein to the Frankfort Parliament. After the failure of that revolution he withdrew to Bremen and in 1853 was sent by that Republic to the United States as Minister. By 1860 he had become one of the best known and socially popular of the Washington diplomatic corps, holding intimate relations with leading Americans both North and South. His reports on events preceding and during the Civil War were examined in the archives of Bremen in 1910 by Dr. Ralph H. Lutz when preparing his doctor's thesis, "Die Beziehungen zwischen Deutschland und den Vereinigten Staaten während des Sezessionskrieges" (Heidelberg, 1911). My facts with regard to Schleiden are drawn in part from this thesis, in part from an article by him, "Rudolph Schleiden and the Visit to Richmond, April 25, 1861," printed in the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1915, pp. 207-216. Copies of some of Schleiden's despatches are on deposit in the Library of Congress among the papers of Carl Schurz. Through the courtesy of Mr. Frederic Bancroft, who organized the Schurz papers, I have been permitted to take copies of a few Schleiden dispatches relating to the visit to Richmond, an incident apparently unknown to history until Dr. Lutz called attention to it.
[201] This is Bancroft's expression. Seward, II, p. 118.
[202] Lincoln, Works, II, 29.
[203] Ibid., p. 30.