Before Mr. Adams could cross the Atlantic the British Government, although aware of his mission and its object, decided upon its own course, in concerted action with France, and without reference to the views or wishes or interest of the United States. On the day before Mr. Adams's arrival in England, as if to give him offensive warning how little his representations would be regarded, Her Majesty's Government issued a proclamation recognizing the confederated Southern States as belligerents. It is entirely unnecessary to discuss the question of the right to recognize belligerency. The great powers of Europe had the same right to recognize the Southern Confederacy as a belligerent that they had to recognize it as an established nationality, and with the same consequences,—all dependent upon whether the fact so recognized were indeed a fact. But the recognition of belligerency or independence may be the means to achieve a result, and not simply an impartial acquiescence in a result already achieved. The question therefore was not whether foreign powers had a right to recognize, but whether the time and method of such recognition were not distinctly hostile,— whether they were not the efficient and coldly calculated means to strengthen the hands of the Rebellion.
Events proved that if the English Government had postponed this action until the Government of the United States had been allowed a frank discussion of its policy, no possible injury to English interests could have resulted. It was but a very short time before the rebellion assumed proportions that led to the recognition of the Confederacy as a belligerent by the civil, judicial, and military authorities of the Union; a recognition by foreign powers would then have been simply an act of impartial neutrality. But, declared with such precipitancy, recognition could be regarded only as an act of unfriendliness to the United States. The proof of this is inherent in the case:—
1. The purpose of the secession, openly avowed from the beginning, was the dissolution of the Union and the establishment of an independent slave-empire; and the joint recognition was a declaration that such a result, fraught with ruin to us, was not antagonistic to the feelings or to the supposed interests of Europe, and that both the commercial ambition of England and the military aspirations of France in Mexico hoped to find profit in the event.
ENGLAND'S RECOGNITION OF BELLIGERENCY.
2. This recognition of belligerency in defiance of the known wishes and interests of the United States, accompanied by the discourteous refusal to allow a few hours' delay for the reception of the American minister, was a significant warning to the seceded States that no respect due to the old Union would long delay the establishment of new relations, and that they should put forth all their energies before the embarrassed Administration could concentrate its efforts in defense of the National life.
3. The recognition of the belligerent flag of the Southern Confederacy, with the equal right to supplies and hospitality, guarantied by such recognition, gave to the insurgents facilities and opportunities which were energetically used, and led to consequences which belong to a later period of this history, but the injury and error of which were emphatically rebuked by a judgment of the most important tribunal that has ever been assembled to interpret and administer international law.
The demand which naturally followed for a rigid enforcement of the blockade, imposed a heavy burden upon the Government of the United States just at the time when it was least prepared to assume such a burden. Apologists for the unfriendly course of England interpose the plea that the declaration of blockade by the United States was in fact a prior recognition of Southern belligerency. But it must be remembered that when the United States proposed to avoid this technical argument by closing the insurgent ports instead of blockading them, Mr. Seward was informed by Lord Lyons, acting in concert with the French minister, that Her Majesty's Government "would consider a decree closing the ports of the South actually in possession of the insurgent or Confederate States, as null and void, and that they would not submit to measures on the high seas in pursuance of such decree." Bitterly might Mr. Seward announce the fact which has sunk deep into the American heart: "It is indeed manifest in the tone of the speeches, as well as in the general tenor of popular discussion, that neither the responsible ministers nor the House of Commons nor the active portion of the people of Great Britain sympathize with this government, and hope, or even wish, for its success in suppressing the insurrection; and that on the contrary the whole British nation, speaking practically, desire and expect the dismemberment of the Republic."
This very decided step towards a hostile policy was soon followed by another even more significant. On the 9th of May, 1861, only a few days before the Proclamation of Her Britannic Majesty, recognizing the belligerency of the Southern Confederacy and thus developing itself as a part of a concerted and systematic policy, Lord Cowley, the British Ambassador at Paris, wrote to Lord John Russell: "I called this afternoon on M. Thouvenel, Minister of Foreign Affairs, for the purpose of obtaining his answer to the proposals contained in your Lordship's dispatch of the 6th inst. relative to the measures which should be pursued by the Maritime Powers of Europe for the protection of neutral property in presence of the events which are passing in the American States. M. Thouvenel said the Imperial Government concurred entirely in the views of Her Majesty's Government in endeavoring to obtain of the belligerents a formal recognition of the second, third, and fourth articles of the Declaration of Paris. Count de Flahault (French Ambassador in London) would receive instructions to make this known officially to your Lordship. With regard to the manner in which this endeavor should be made, M. Thouvenel said that he thought a communication should be addressed to both parties in as nearly as possible the same language, the consuls being made the organs of communication with the Southern States."
Communicating this intelligence to Lord Lyons in a dispatch dated May 18, 1861, Lord John Russell added these instructions: "Your Lordship may therefore be prepared to find your French colleague ready to take the same line with yourself in his communications with the Government of the United States. I need not tell your Lordship that Her Majesty's Government would very gladly see a practice which is calculated to lead to great irregularities and to increase the calamities of war renounced by both the contending parties in America as it has been renounced by almost every other nation in the world. . . . You will take such measures as you shall judge most expedient to transmit to Her Majesty's consul at Charleston or New Orleans a copy of my previous dispatch to you of this day's date, to be communicated at Montgomery to the President of the so-styled Confederate States."
The identity of the address and the equality upon which both the belligerents were invited to do what had been done by "almost every other nation of the world" need not be emphasized.