CHAPTER XXXVI

SLAVERY AND FOREIGN RELATIONS

Or all the questions relating to the Civil War, the two sections have found it most difficult to agree as to the nature of its cause and its purpose. Even the abolitionists with but one idea, who foresaw that secession would destroy slavery, did not at first maintain that emancipation either was or should be the chief aim. Although the Confederates called slavery the corner-stone of their new political edifice, they imagined that the object of their struggle was to secure greater state rights, more commercial freedom, and a harmonious, fraternal government. By the general expression of "war for the Union," or "war for independence," the respective leaders described the immediate aim without going back to the real origin or forward to the probable results of the conflict.

The basis from which Seward argued with foreign powers was that, as the sovereignty of the United States had not been overthrown, the acts and purposes of the Confederates and the question of slavery, were purely domestic affairs which could be ignored or brought to the front, as public sentiment and military interests demanded. So the first instructions to Adams said: "You will not consent to draw into debate before the British government any opposing moral principles which may be supposed to lie at the foundation of the controversy between those states and the Federal Union." And to Dayton he expressed these opinions: "The territories

will remain in all respects the same, whether the revolution shall succeed or shall fail. The condition of slavery in the several states will remain just the same whether it succeed or fail." "

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Consistency was not the most conspicuous of Seward's virtues. If he had not been speculating with a particular object in view, probably his conclusion would have agreed with the one announced in 1850, and frequently proclaimed since that time-namely, that a civil war would bring on "violent but complete and immediate emancipation" In fact, just a week before the date of the instructions to Dayton, Seward remarked: "We are in a war, and wars work out results not contemplated by either side. It is a war for and against the Union, but no man can foretell how far it will go, or how far it will affect other interests, slavery among the rest." A very perplexing philosopher, indeed. But our duty is to try to understand him. In one case he was undoubtedly considering what could not be done according to the strict letter of the Constitution, and in the other what might come as a war-measure, which is often merely a modern and evasive euphemism for the ancient maxim, Inter arma silent leges. Undoubtedly each opinion was designed to be serviceable in its time and place.

The heat of revolutionary passion increased with the temperature of the spring and summer of 1861. The abolitionists, now rapidly increasing in number, insisted that to emancipate the slaves of Confederates would quickly end the war. The adoption of such a policy, then, would have seemed to justify what the secessionists had said in the past about Republican purposes; it would have transformed loyal slave-holders into Confederate allies, and have cost Lincoln's administration most of the support it was receiving from the fighting

1 Dip. Cor., 1861, 76, 198.

21 Works, 86. 32 Seward, 616.

element among southern Unionists and northern Democrats and conservatives. The routed and frightened troops from the first battle of Bull Run had hardly reached Washington when Crittenden, whose devotion to the Union depended on no if, brought forward a resolution declaring that the war was not for conquest or to interfere with the rights or established institutions" of the southern states, "but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several states unimpaired; that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease." Almost immediately, and with close approach to unanimity, the members of the House and of the Senate pledged themselves to these declarations. This was a Congressional approval of Seward's theory-so often mentioned during the preceding eight months-that the Union, not slavery, was the paramount issue.

In the next few weeks was passed the first of the measures providing for the confiscation of all property, including slaves, used in support of the insurrection. In various ways slavery was weakened in all those parts of the South to which Federal troops were sent; and in August, 1861, Frémont issued a proclamation in Missouri, declaring the confiscation of the property of all persons that had taken up arms against the United States. But Lincoln ordered that slaves should be prohibited from entering or following the military camps, and he changed the effect of Frémont's proclamation so that only property used against the government should be confiscated. This opposition to purely antislavery aims excited the bitterest criticism among abolitionists; but Lincoln refused to go beyond the course adopted by Congress. The immediate purpose was to save Maryland, and to win Kentucky and as much as possible of Virginia and Tennessee.

The attitude of the Confederates toward slavery and their interpretations of the motives of the Federal government caused Lincoln's administration much annoyance. While they indignantly denied that they were fighting for the protection and expansion of slavery, they disagreed among themselves both as to their ultimate aims and as to those of their enemies. The first instructions to Yancey, Rost, and Mann authorized these commissioners to offer to assume obligations for all treaties in existence between the United States and Great Britain except the one for the suppression of the slave-trade.' On May 18, 1861, Toombs wrote to them that it was obvious that, "however it may be concealed under the guise of patriotism and fidelity to the late Federal compact, the real motive which actuates Mr. Lincoln and those who now sustain his acts, is to accomplish by force of arms that which the masses of the northern people have long sought to effect, namely, the overthrow of our domestic institutions, the devastation and destruction of our social interests, and the reduction of the southern states to the condition of subject provinces."

But it was not long before the Confederates saw their opportunity. On August 14, 1861, the commissioners adroitly attempted to counteract English prejudice against recognizing a slave-holding government by maintaining that the South had not seceded to save slavery, and that it was not the aim of the United States to free the slave, but "to keep him in subjection to his owner, and to control his labor through the legislative channels, which the Lincoln government designs to force upon the master." This was made very plausible by referring to some of the attempts to prevent secession --a constitutional amendment, proposed the previous winter, against governmental interference with slavery,

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and Lincoln's disavowals of an antislavery crusade. After such an explanation, they felt confident that English sentiment could have no affection for the North; "nay, it would probably become disgusted with a canting hypocrisy which would enlist those sympathies on false pretences." Lest this exposé might not suit every contingency, or not be sufficiently damaging, the commissioners were ready to admit that the policy might be changed-"a policy based at present more upon a wily view of what is to be its effect" in the South than upon any honest desire to uphold the Constitution. But in case of a change of purpose, they prophesied, a system of labor would be destroyed that had reared up a vast commerce between America and the great states of Europe, "which, it is supposed, now gives bread to ten millions of the population of those states"; and the result would be "disastrous to the world, as well as to the master and slave.'

Foreigners generally were unable to understand how slavery could either be the real cause of the war or be in issue when the avowed purpose of one belligerent was to save the Union, while that of the other was to destroy it; and they were so uninformed as to political expediency and the constitutional powers of the central government that they were often resentful because the administration did not announce a policy of emancipation. These circumstances were very favorable to the Confederates, who could use certain half-truths so as to lead to wholly false conclusions. On the other hand, Northerners were amazingly dull in expecting Englishmen to comprehend without a careful explanation that the South seceded because the Republican victory of 1860 meant that the interests of slavery had lost control of the government. Motley expressed the common and erroneous expecta

1 American Annual Cyclopædia, 1861, 279.