"One war at a time," the President said to his Secretary of State when he proposed a foreign fight. He must now strangle Northern public opinion to enforce this principle.
Captain Wilkes had overhauled the British Steamer Trent on the high seas, searched her and taken the Confederate Commissioners Mason and Slidell by force from her decks.
The people of the North were mad with joy over the daring act. Congress, swept off its feet by the wave of popular hysteria, proclaimed Wilkes a hero and voted their thanks. The President did not move with current opinion. He had formed the habit in boyhood of thinking for himself, and had never allowed himself to take his cues for action from second-hand suggestions. From the first he raised the question of Wilkes' right to stop the vessel of a friendly nation on the high seas, search her and take her passengers prisoners by force of arms.
The backwoods lawyer questioned, too, the right of a naval officer to turn his quarter-deck into a court and decide questions of international law offhand. He raised the point at once whether these men thus captured might not be white elephants on the hands of the Government. Moreover he reminded his Cabinet that we had fought England once for daring to do precisely this thing.
Great Britain promptly drew her sword and made ready for war.
Queen Victoria's Government not only demanded that the return of these passengers be made at once with an apology, but did it in a way so offensive that a less balanced man in power would have lost his head and committed the fatal blunder.
The tall, quiet Chief Magistrate was equal to the occasion. Great Britain had ordered her navy on a war footing, dispatched eight thousand troops to Canada to strike by land as well as sea, allowing us but seven days in which to comply with all her demands or hand Lord Lyons his passports.
The President immediately dictated a reply which forced her Prime Minister to accept it and achieved for the Nation the establishment of a principle for which we had fought in vain in 1812.
He ordered the prisoners returned and an apology expressed. His apology was a two-edged sword thrust which Great Britain was compelled to take with a groan.
"In 1812," the President said, "the United States fought because you claimed the right to stop our vessels on the high seas, search them and take by force British subjects found thereon. Our country in making this surrender, adheres to the ancient principle for which we contended and we are glad to find that Her Majesty's Government in demanding this surrender thereby renounces an error and accepts our position."