1862 CHAPTER VIII. - WAR OF THE REBELLION - THE TRENT CASE FOREIGN AFFAIRS-THE HAND OF OLD ENGLANDCOURSE OF THE "RULING CLASS' 19 THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE - AMERICA AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE TO BE CRUSHED-MAXIMILIAN-TIME, THE AVENGER. O N the 8th of November, 1861, Captain Charles Wilkes, commander of the United States warsteamer San Jacinto, stopped the British merchantvessel Trent, between Havana and St. Thomas, and forcibly took from her James M. Mason and John Slidell, with their two secretaries. These men, with what signs of authority they could get from Jefferson Davis, were on their way to England and France to represent the "Southern Confederacy," and this fact was well known to the British consul at Havana, and the captain of the Trent and her British passengers, who were all warm in the interest of the Rebellion. A month before, indeed, these men had been carried out of Charleston Harbor by the Theodora, a British blockade-runner. Wilkes proceeded to New York, from whence the prisoners were conveyed to Fort Warren, in Boston Harbor. This affair went into diplomatic history as Trent Case," and for a time created a great Ideal of excitement and bluster on both sides of the the " Atlantic. In England there was a strong desire that it should be made the cause of immediate war with the United States, and no effort was spared to goad the Ministry to assume a hostile attitude. In the South it was regarded as an "especial providence' in favor of the Rebellion, to be followed by foreign. recognition, coalition, and the speedy degradation of the United States. Captain Wilkes had not been instructed to take this step, and hence the Administration was not obliged to support him in it. The policy of the United States had always been unfavorable to searching the vessels of friendly neutral powers, and especially to the old, arrogant British claim to the right of search and impressment. And this very thing had mainly led President Madison to declare war against England in 1812. On these two grounds the Administration could readily rest the defense of the course it determined to take in this unfortunate case. From the outset Mr. Lincoln regretted 'the action of Wilkes, not thinking it either just or politic. It was not the time to quarrel with England; and the way to adjust the difficulty carried with it, at least, the appearance of humiliation. The Cabinet was not. unanimous on the course to be pursued, and at any rate one member of it, the Secretary of the Navy, never did depart from the strong position he first took, with the majority of the people, in support of the conduct of Captain Wilkes. Mr. Welles, in a letter to Wilkes, on the 30th of November, publicly thanked him for his patriotic act. patriotic act. But this only showed that, unrestrained by calmer and more politic heads, the Secretary of the Navy would hardly have been a very safe man in times of great emergency. The House of Representatives also passed a vote of thanks, and asked the President to provide a gold medal for Captain Wilkes; but the calmer Senate did not agree to this measure. While the action of the House represented the heat and sentiment of the majority of the people of the country, it also exhibited the value of the Senate and Executive as a check on its temper and extravagance at an important crisis. fire up This event was not needed to show this country the secret unfriendliness of England, and its imperishable hatred for this Republic and its people; nor was such an incentive necessary here to remind us of our old, ineradicable grudges, and disposition to on the least imaginary or real provocation on the part of England. Great Britain never had a better opportunity to do what her leading politicians. and aristocratic classes have doubtlessly always desired, to destroy this Government, or put it in the way to destruction; nor was this country ever in a condition to engage in a fierce life-struggle with her old foe. This was all very well known in England, and her failure to take full advantage of her opportunity entitles her to more credit, perhaps, than the American people were ever disposed to give her, whatever may have been her motives. worse At the outset England and France had made haste to let this Government, with which they held the most friendly diplomatic relations, know that they would so far take note of its affairs as to recognize the belligerent rights of the rebels-rights which they did not possess-and thus do what they could to weaken its power. When Captain Wilkes committed his blunder, the ruling "class" in England declared for war, and said the first thing should be independence to the South. The downfall of the Republic would follow. The Administration took the course that wisdom and prudence dictated, and was quite as selfish in doing so as England was in accepting what was done. Charles Francis Adams, the American Minister at the London Court, was at once notified by Mr. Seward of the course the Administration would take when the time came; and Mr. Adams prepared himself to perform his part of the work to the utmost satisfaction of his chief, whom he deemed not only the model statesman of the age, but also the intellectual and executive force of a Cabinet, where Mr. Lincoln was nothing more than a mere figure-head. England was not long in presenting the occasion for action, which Mr. Seward and the President knew must come. And the demand was what they expected, at least, reparation and apology. Mr. Seward set about the work at once, and, whether it was a duty or a necessity, the task was a difficult one. The whole matter, so far as this Government was concerned, rested upon the fact that it was in no condition to go to war with England, and the way out of this difficulty was in the simple rejection of the act of Captain Wilkes, the release of the four rebels, and the reassertion of the principle for which the Government had stood out in its first quarter of a century against the British. But Mr. Seward had a double task to perform. To satisfy his impulsive countrymen was of less importance than to appease England's outraged honor, yet it was necessary. Hence, it was incumbent on him to take a much wider scope in his presentation of the case to the British Ministry than was implied in the brief points suggested by the circumstances of the country at the time. Mr. Seward's argument was able and ingenious, and while it taught England that there were two sides to the question, and much in it unfavorable to her, it did something in correcting the hasty judgment of the people at home, and showing them that the act of Captain Wilkes, beyond being not merely impolitic, was also not strictly just toward a neutral power; and, especially, was inconsistent with the former claims of this Government. England accepted the points in the argument, which she considered particularly satisfactory to her wounded pride, the rebels were released and went on their way, and the two nations continued their former hypocritical friendship. The United States Government had only done right in the case, and so the world has judged; but the rebels cried that she had been led to the lowest depths of ignominious humiliation to avoid war with England. This was to be expected, as they were the only sufferers by the "Trent Case." With this "special providence" went down their hope in |