In these great events—for the union of Italy was the greatest fact which had been accomplished in Europe since the fall of the first Napoleon—the British ministry had undoubtedly acquired credit. It was everywhere felt that the new kingdom owed much to the moral support which had been steadily and consistently given to it by Great Britain. Soon afterwards, however, in the autumn of 1863, the death of the king of Denmark led to a new revolution in the north of Europe, in which Lord Palmerston’s government displayed less resolution, and lost much of the prestige which it had acquired by its Italian policy. The duchies of Schleswig and Holstein had been for centuries united to the kingdom of Denmark by the golden link of the Schleswig-Holstein question. crown; in other respects they had been organically kept distinct, while one of them—Holstein—was a member of the German confederation. The succession to the crown of Denmark, however, was different from that in the duchies. In Denmark the crown could descend, as it descends in Great Britain, through females. In the duchies the descent was confined to the male line; and, as Frederick VII., who ascended the Danish throne in 1848, had no direct issue, the next heir to the crown of Denmark under this rule was Prince Christian of Glücksburg, afterwards king; the next heir to the duchies being the duke of Augustenburg. In 1850 an arrangement had been made to prevent the separation of the duchies from the kingdom. As a result of a conference held in London, the duke of Augustenburg was induced to renounce his claim on the receipt of a large sum of money. Most of the great powers of Europe were parties to this plan. But the German confederation was not represented at the conference, and was not therefore committed to its conclusions. During the reign of Frederick VII. the Danish government endeavoured to cement the alliance between the duchies and the kingdom, and specially to separate the interests of Schleswig, which was largely Danish in its sympathies, from those of Holstein, which was almost exclusively German. With this object, in the last year of his life, Frederick VII. granted Holstein autonomous institutions, and bound Schleswig more closely to the Danish monarchy. The new king Christian IX. confirmed this arrangement. The German diet at Frankfort at once protested against it. Following up words with acts, it decided on occupying Holstein, and it delegated the duty of carrying out its order to Hanover and Saxony. While this federal execution was taking place, the duke of Augustenburg—regardless of the arrangements to which he had consented—delegated his rights in the duchies to his son, who formally claimed the succession. So far the situation, which was serious enough, had been largely dependent on the action of Germany. In the closing days of 1863 it passed mainly into the control of the two chief German powers. In Prussia Bismarck had lately become prime minister, and was animated by ambitious projects for his country’s aggrandizement. Austria, afraid of losing her influence in Germany, followed the lead of Prussia, and the two powers required Denmark to cancel the arrangements which Frederick VII. had made, and which Christian IX. had confirmed, threatening in case of refusal to follow up the occupation of Holstein by that of Schleswig. As the Danes gave only a provisional assent to the demand, Prussian and Austrian troops entered Schleswig. These events created much excitement in England. The great majority of the British people, who imperfectly understood the merits of the case, were unanimous in their desire to support Denmark by arms. Their wish had been accentuated by the circumstance that the marriage in the previous spring of the prince of Wales to the daughter of the new king of Denmark had given them an almost personal interest in the struggle. Lord Palmerston had publicly expressed the views of the people by declaring that, if Denmark were attacked, her assailants would not have to deal with Denmark alone. The language of the public press and of Englishmen visiting Denmark confirmed the impression which the words of the prime minister had produced; and there is unfortunately no doubt that Denmark was encouraged to resist her powerful opponents by the belief, which she was thus almost authorized in entertaining, that she could reckon in the hour of her danger on the active assistance of the United Kingdom. If Lord Palmerston had been supported by his cabinet, or if he had been a younger man, he might possibly, in 1864, have made good the words which he had rashly uttered in 1863. But the queen, who, it is fair to add, understood the movement which was tending to German unity much better than most of her advisers, was averse from war. A large section of the cabinet shared the queen’s hesitation, and Lord Palmerston—with the weight of nearly eighty summers upon him—was not strong enough to enforce his will against both his sovereign and his colleagues. He made some attempt to ascertain whether the emperor of the French would support him if he went to war. But he found that the emperor had not much fancy for a struggle which would have restored Holstein to Denmark; and that, if he went to war at all, his chief object would be the liberation of Venice and the rectification of his own frontiers. Even Lord Palmerston shrank from entering on a campaign which would have involved all Europe in conflagration and would have unsettled the boundaries of most continental nations; and the British government endeavoured thenceforward to stop hostilities by referring the question immediately in dispute to a conference in London. The labours of the conference proved abortive. Its members were unable to agree upon any methods of settlements, and the war went on. Denmark, naturally unable to grapple with her powerful antagonists, was forced to yield, and the two duchies which were the subject of dispute were taken from her.
The full consequences of this struggle were not visible at the time. It was impossible to foresee that it was the first step which was to carry Prussia forward, under her ambitious minister, to a position of acknowledged supremacy on the continent. But the results to Great Britain were plain enough. She had been mighty in words and weak in deeds. It was no doubt open to her to contend, as perhaps most wise people consider, that the cause of Denmark was not of sufficient importance to justify her in going to war. But it was not open to her to encourage a weak power to resist and then desert her in the hour of her necessity. Lord Palmerston should not have used the language which he employed in 1863 if he had not decided that his brave words would be followed by brave action. His conduct lowered the prestige of Great Britain at least as much as his Italian policy had raised it. Continental statesmen thenceforward assumed that Great Britain, however much she might protest, would not resort to arms, and the influence of England suffered, as it was bound to suffer, in consequence.
Meanwhile, in this period of warfare, another struggle was being fought out on a still greater scale in North America. The election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency of the United States emphasized the fact that the majority of the inhabitants of the Northern States were opposed to the further spread of American civil war. slavery; and, in the beginning of 1861, several of the Southern States formally seceded from the union. A steamer sent by the Federal government with reinforcements to Fort Sumter was fired upon, and both parties made preparations for the civil war which was apparently inevitable. On the one side the Confederate States—as the seceding states were called—were animated by a resolution to protect their property. On the other side the “conscience” of the North was excited by a passionate desire to wipe out the blot of slavery. Thus both parties were affected by some of the most powerful considerations which can influence mankind, while the North were further actuated by the natural incentive to preserve the union, which was threatened with disruption. The progress of the great struggle was watched with painful attention in England. The most important manufacturing interest in England was paralysed by the loss of the raw cotton, which was obtained almost exclusively from the United States, and tens of thousands of workpeople were thrown out of employment. The distress which resulted naturally created a strong feeling in favour of intervention, which might terminate the war and open the Southern ports to British commerce; and the initial successes which the Confederates secured seemed to afford some justification for such a proceeding. In the course of 1862 indeed, when the Confederate armies had secured many victories, Gladstone, speaking at Newcastle, used the famous expression that President Jefferson Davis had “made a nation”; and Lord Palmerston’s language in the House of Commons—while opposing a motion for the recognition of the South—induced the impression that his thoughts were tending in the same direction as Mr Gladstone’s. The emperor Napoleon, in July of the same year, confidentially asked the British minister whether the moment had not come for recognizing the South; and in the following September Lord Palmerston was himself disposed in concert with France to offer to mediate on the basis of separation. Soon afterwards, however, the growing exhaustion of the South improved the prospects of the Northern States: an increasing number of persons in Great Britain objected to interfere in the interests of slavery; and the combatants were allowed to fight out their quarrel without the interference of Europe.
At the beginning of the war, Lord John Russell (who was made a peer as Earl Russell in 1861) acknowledged the Southern States as belligerents. His decision caused some ill-feeling at Washington; but it was inevitable. For the North had proclaimed a blockade of the Southern ports; and it would have been both inconvenient and unfair if Lord Russell had decided to recognize the blockade and had refused to acknowledge the belligerent rights of the Southern States. Lord Russell’s decision, however, seemed to indicate some latent sympathy for the Southern cause; and the irritation which was felt in the North was increased by the news that the Southern States were The “Trent” incident. accrediting two gentlemen to represent them at Paris and at London. These emissaries, Messrs Mason and Slidell, succeeded in running the blockade and in reaching Cuba, where they embarked on the “Trent,” a British mail steamer sailing for England. On her passage home the “Trent” was stopped by the Federal steamer “San Jacinto”; she was boarded, and Messrs Mason and Slidell were arrested. There was no doubt that the captain of the “San Jacinto” had acted irregularly. While he had the right to stop the “Trent,” examine the mails, and, if he found despatches for the enemy among them, carry the vessel into an American port for adjudication, he had no authority to board the vessel and arrest two of her passengers. “The British government,” to use its own language, “could not allow such an affront to the national honour to pass without due reparation.” They decided on sending what practically amounted to an ultimatum to the Federal government, calling upon it to liberate the prisoners and to make a suitable apology. The presentation of this ultimatum, which was accompanied by the despatch of troops to Canada, was very nearly provoking war with the United States. If, indeed, the ultimatum had been presented in the form in which it was originally framed, war might have ensued. But at the prince consort’s suggestion its language was considerably modified, and the responsibility for the outrage was thrown on the officer who committed it, and not on the government of the Republic. It ought not to be forgotten that this important modification was the last service rendered to his adopted country by the prince consort before his fatal illness. He died before the answer to the despatch was received; and his death deprived the queen of an adviser who had stood by her side since the earlier days of her reign, and who, by his prudence and conduct, had done much to raise the tone of the court and the influence of the crown. Happily for the future of the world, the government of the United States felt itself able to accept the despatch which had been thus addressed to it, and to give the reparation which was demanded; and the danger of war between the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race was averted. But, in the following summer, a new event excited fresh animosities, and aroused a controversy which endured for the best part of ten years.
The Confederates, naturally anxious to harass the commerce of their enemies, endeavoured from the commencement of hostilities to purchase armed cruisers from builders of neutral nations. In June 1862 the American minister in London drew Lord Russell’s attention to the fact that a vessel, lately launched at Messrs Laird’s yard at Birkenhead, was obviously intended to be employed as a Confederate cruiser. The solicitor to the commissioners of customs, however, considered that no facts had been revealed to authorize the detention of the vessel, and this opinion was reported in July to the American minister, Charles Francis Adams. He thereupon supplied the government with additional facts, and at the same time furnished them with the opinion of an eminent English lawyer, R.P. Collier (afterwards The “Alabama.” Lord Monkswell), to the effect that “it would be difficult to make out a stronger case of infringement of the Foreign Enlistment Act, which if not enforced on this occasion is little better than a dead letter.” These facts and this opinion were at once sent to the law officers. They reached the queen’s advocate on Saturday the 26th of July; but, by an unfortunate mischance, the queen’s advocate had just been wholly incapacitated by a distressing illness; and the papers, in consequence, did not reach the attorney- and solicitor-general till the evening of the following Monday, when they at once advised the government to detain the vessel. Lord Russell thereupon sent orders to Liverpool for her detention. In the meanwhile the vessel—probably aware of the necessity for haste—had put to sea, and had commenced the career which made her famous as the “Alabama.” Ministers might even then have taken steps to stop the vessel by directing her detention in any British port to which she resorted for supplies. The cabinet, however, shrank from this course. The “Alabama” was allowed to prey on Federal commerce, and undoubtedly inflicted a vast amount of injury on the trade of the United States. In the autumn of 1862 Adams demanded redress for the injuries which had thus been sustained, and this demand was repeated for many years in stronger and stronger language. At last, in 1871, long after Lord Palmerston’s death and Lord Russell’s retirement, a joint commission was appointed to examine into the many cases of dispute which had arisen between the United States and Great Britain. The commissioners agreed upon three rules by which they thought neutrals should in future be bound, and recommended that they should be given a retrospective effect. They decided also that the claims which had arisen out of the depredations of the “Alabama” should be referred to arbitration. In the course of 1872 the arbitrators met at Geneva. Their finding was adverse to Great Britain, which was condemned to pay a large sum of money—more than £3,000,000—as compensation. A period of exceptional prosperity, which largely increased the revenue, enabled a chancellor of the exchequer to boast that the country had drunk itself out of the “Alabama” difficulty.
In October 1805 Lord Palmerston’s rule, which had been characterized by six years of political inaction at home and by constant disturbance abroad, was terminated by his death. The ministry, which had suffered many losses Lord Russell’s second ministry. from death during its duration, was temporarily reconstructed under Lord Russell; and the new minister at once decided to put an end to the period of internal stagnation, which had lasted so long, by the introduction of a new Reform Bill. Accordingly, in March 1866 Gladstone, who now led the House of Commons, introduced a measure which proposed to extend the county franchise to £14 and the borough franchise to £7 householders. The bill did not create much enthusiasm among Liberals, and it was naturally opposed by the Conservatives, who were reinforced by a large section of moderate Liberals, nicknamed, in consequence of a phrase in one of Bright’s speeches, Adullamites. After many debates, in which the Commons showed little disposition to give the ministry any effective support, an amendment was carried by Lord Dunkellin, the eldest son of Lord Clanricarde, basing the borough franchise on rating instead of rental. The cabinet, recognizing from the division that the control of the House had passed out of its hands, resigned office, and the queen was compelled to entrust Lord Derby with the task of forming a new administration.
For the third time in his career Lord Derby undertook the formidable task of conducting the government of the country with only a minority of the House of Commons to support him. The moment at which he made this Lord Derby’s third ministry. third attempt was one of unusual anxiety. Abroad, the almost simultaneous outbreak of war between Prussia and Austria was destined to affect the whole aspect of continental politics. At home, a terrible murrain had fallen on the cattle, inflicting ruin on the agricultural interest; a grave commercial crisis was creating alarm in the city of London, and, in its consequences, injuring the interests of labour; while the working classes, at last roused from their long indifference, and angry at the rejection of Lord Russell’s bill, were assembling in their tens of thousands to demand reform. The cabinet determined to prohibit a meeting which the Reform League decided to hold in Hyde Park on the 23rd of July, and closed the gates of the park on the people. But the mob, converging on the park in thousands, surged round the railings, which a little inquiry might have shown were too weak to resist any real pressure. Either accidentally or intentionally, the railings were overturned in one place, and the people, perceiving their opportunity, at once threw them down round the whole circuit of the park. Few acts in Queen Victoria’s reign were attended with greater consequences. For the riot in Hyde Park led almost directly to a new Reform Act, and to the transfer of power from the middle classes to the masses of the people.
Yet, though the new government found it necessary to introduce a Reform Bill, a wide difference of opinion existed in the cabinet as to the form which the measure should take. Several of its members were in favour of assimilating Reform, 1867. the borough franchise to that in force in municipal elections, and practically conferring a vote on every householder who had three years’ residence in the constituency. General Peel, however—Sir Robert Peel’s brother—who held the seals of the war office, objected to this extension; and the cabinet ultimately decided on evading the difficulty by bringing forward a series of resolutions on which a scheme of reform might ultimately be based. Their success in 1858, in dealing with the government of India in this way, commended the decision to the acceptance of the cabinet. But it was soon apparent that the House of Commons required a definite scheme, and that it would not seriously consider a set of abstract resolutions which committed no one to any distinct plan. Hence on the 23rd of February 1867 the cabinet decided on withdrawing its resolutions and reverting to its original bill. On the following day Lord Cranborne—better known afterwards as Lord Salisbury—discovered that the bill had more democratic tendencies than he had originally supposed, and refused to be a party to it. On Monday, the 25th, the cabinet again met to consider the new difficulty which had thus arisen; and it decided (as was said afterwards by Sir John Pakington) in ten minutes to substitute for the scheme a mild measure extending the borough franchise to houses rated at £6 a year, and conferring the county franchise on £20 householders. The bill, it was soon obvious, would be acceptable to no one; and the government again fell back on its original proposal. Three members of the cabinet, however, Lord Cranborne, Lord Carnarvon and General Peel, refused to be parties to the measure, and resigned office, the government being necessarily weakened by these defections. In the large scheme which the cabinet had now adopted, the borough franchise was conferred on all householders rated to the relief of the poor, who had for two years occupied the houses which gave them the qualification; the county franchise was given to the occupiers of all houses rated at £15 a year or upwards. But it was proposed that these extensions should be accompanied by an educational franchise, and a franchise conferred on persons who had paid twenty shillings in assessed taxes or income tax; the taxpayers who had gained a vote in this way being given a second vote in respect of the property which they occupied. In the course of the discussion on the bill in the House of Commons, the securities on which its authors had relied to enable them to stem the tide of democracy were, chiefly through Gladstone’s exertions, swept away. The dual vote was abandoned, direct payment of rates was surrendered, the county franchise was extended to £12 householders, and the redistribution of seats was largely increased. The bill, in the shape in which it had been introduced, had been surrounded with safeguards to property. With their loss it involved a great radical change, which placed the working classes of the country in the position of predominance which the middle classes had occupied since 1832.
The passage of the bill necessitated a dissolution of parliament; but it had to be postponed to enable parliament to supplement the English Reform Act of 1867 with measures applicable to Scotland and Ireland, and to give time for Disraeli prime minister. settling the boundaries of the new constituencies which had been created. This delay gave the Conservatives another year of office. But the first place in the cabinet passed in 1868 from Lord Derby to his lieutenant, Disraeli. The change added interest to political life. Thenceforward, for the next thirteen years, the chief places in the two great parties in the state were filled by the two men, Gladstone and Disraeli, who were unquestionably the ablest representatives of their respective followers. But the situation was also remarkable because power thus definitely passed from men who, without exception, had been born in the 18th century, and had all held cabinet offices before 1832, to men who had been born in the 19th century, and had only risen to cabinet rank in the ’forties and the ’fifties. It was also interesting to reflect that Gladstone had begun life as a Conservative, and had only gradually moved to the ranks of the Liberal party; while Disraeli had fought his first election under the auspices of O’Connell and Hume, had won his spurs by his attacks on Sir Robert Peel, and had been only reluctantly adopted by the Conservatives as their leader in the House of Commons.
The struggle commenced in 1868 on an Irish question. During the previous years considerable attention had been paid to a secret conspiracy in Ireland and among the Irish in America. The Fenians, as they were called, actually attempted insurrection in Ireland, and an invasion of Canada from the United States. At the beginning of 1866 Lord Russell’s government thought itself compelled to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland; and in 1867 Lord Derby’s government was confronted in the spring by a plot to seize Chester Castle, and in the autumn by an attack on a prison van at Manchester containing Fenian prisoners, and by an atrocious attempt to blow up Clerkenwell prison. Conservative politicians deduced from these circumstances the necessity of applying firm government to Ireland. Liberal statesmen, on the contrary, desired to extirpate rebellion Irish Church. by remedying the grievances of which Ireland still complained. Chief among these was the fact that the Established Church in Ireland was the church of only a minority of the people. In March 1868 John Francis Maguire, an Irish Catholic, asked the House of Commons to resolve itself into a committee to take into immediate consideration the affairs of Ireland. Gladstone, in the course of the debate, declared that in his opinion the time had come when the Irish Church, as a political institution, should cease; and he followed up his declaration by a series of resolutions, which were accepted by considerable majorities, pledging the House to its disestablishment. Disraeli, recognizing the full significance of this decision, announced that, as soon as the necessary preparations could be made, the government would appeal from the House to the country. Parliament was dissolved at the end of July, but the general election did not take place till the end of the following November. The future of the Irish Church naturally formed one of the chief subjects which occupied the attention of the electors, but the issue was largely determined by wider considerations. The country, after the long political truce which had been maintained by Lord Palmerston, was again ranged in two hostile camps, animated by opposing views. It was virtually asked to decide in 1868 whether it would put its trust in Liberal or Conservative, in Gladstone or Disraeli. By an overwhelming majority it threw its lot in favour of Gladstone; and Disraeli, without even venturing to meet parliament, took the unusual course of at once placing his resignation in the queen’s hands.